Hacker News Reader

Comment by object-a | Hacker News Reader

For anyone who has tried cars from both automakers, how does BYD compare to Tesla on similar trim vehicles?

If you had to pay US/EU prices for a Tesla vs BYD you'd go with BYD no question. But the majority of Teslas are made in China and when put a Chinese made Tesla alongside a Chinese made BYD it's a coin flip.

So as an Australian I'd roughly rate them the same with BYD high end matching Tesla's high end and BYD having a low end that Tesla doesn't compete with (the Atto which is ~USD $15000 for a small electric hatchback has no Tesla equivalent).

Isn't the seagull the cheapest model at like $8k?

Same car, called the Atto 1 in Australia and with the steering wheel on the other side and slightly better than base specs in Australia.

Correct. I believe the cheapest I could buy it for is about 60,000 rmb.

BYD doesn't sell in USA.

The point is the difficulty of the comparison. They are tariffed in the EU and NA to the point of near inviability so I don’t see that as a valid comparison. Outside the EU and NA they are Chinese made cars.

So basically you either compare current NA/EU Teslas to a hypothetical untariffed BYD (I don’t think this is fair) or you compare Chinese made Teslas to BYDs (which of course leads to similar prive perf ratios).

Byd Auto Motor, Inc. 1800 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015 https://www.byd.international/city/los-angeles

Ok, but "where the rubber meets the road", I've seen 0 BYDs in the wild in the US, including a recent 1,800 mile trip half way across the country. Earlier in 2025 I took a trip to Scotland and they had 2 dealerships I saw and I saw a couple of them on the roads.

Leasing a building and having an english section on the website doesn't mean they're available here yet.

The pricing page shows none available in the USA:

https://www.byd.international/pricing

I don’t know how, but there are BYD city buses in Miami.

BYD makes buses in SoCal.

BYD Sealion 7 is better than a 2025 Model Y Standard and worse than a Model Y Premium in terms of ride quality/suspension and driving dynamics.

The interior is more taste dependent, but the Model Y Standard is clearly a low budget version (with fabric seats) that's below the BYD. The Model Y Premium interior and seats felt higher quality to me, but it has a more minimalist design while the BYD has a more traditional setup with a screen behind the wheel.

The Tesla screen/app seem more responsive and premium. Also above for example VW where things are often sluggish and don't feel as well designed from a UX perspective.

Thank you for answering the question

In my opinion, BYD car looks more premium than Tesla. Reasonably priced too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com