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(1) Tesla sales have crashed in Europe.
(2) BYD sales are up globally, with the largest gain in China. Most of those sales are not in the EU; the EU has imposed high tariffs on Chinese autos.
These two statements are operating independently of each other; it is not the case that BYD sales are what have caused Tesla to crash in Europe, and this is not what the article says. However, the headline puts these two facts in close juxtaposition, inviting an incorrect conclusion on quick skim.
Drawing from other sources, BYD sold only about 83,000 cars in the EU in 2024, though they are projecting to double that in 2025. So it may be that BYD will be part of _future_ Tesla sales drops, but these are likely due to price/quality more than politics.
EVs are not only produced in the USA and China, but in the EU, UK, Korea and Japan.
Finally, most of what we're seeing with Tesla sales is _individual_ purchasing decisions, not strategic moves by governments... yet. We'll see, of course.
_Is_ China less trustworthy, though? I mean, it hasn’t threatened to invade bits of Europe, so there’s that.
FWIW, I don’t think that US brands other than Tesla are seeing hits of the same size (though, with the exception of Ford, they’re kind of rounding errors anyway, and Ford isn’t relevant in the EV market). Tesla has special problems; no other US car manufacturer CEO, or for that matter Chinese car manufacturer CEO, has recently been prancing around on TV doing Nazi salutes, and no other US car manufacturer CEO is part of Trump’s government. I’m not sure that Americans understand the degree to which Trump is disliked in Europe, particularly in Western Europe where most of the market for electric cars is.
Yes, things can have more than one cause, but the article mentions political motivations several times.
But unless the CEO of BYD has been trying to actively undermine European elections… perhaps this is more about Telsa specifically and the relative value proposition of BYD vehicles at their lower price point.
The real elites in China are CCP officials - no one can keep them in line, in any case no one keep in line Xi Jinping himself.
People aren't turning specifically to BYD, they're turning to anything but Tesla.