BYD NEVs include both passenger and commercial vehicles recorded January sales of 205,518 units, down 30.67% year-on-year and down 50.45% month-on-month.
BYD’s January sales of passenger battery electric vehicles (BEVs) totaled 83,249 units, down 33.60% year-on-year and down 56.35% from December.
BYD’s power battery and energy storage battery installations in January totaled about 20.187 GWh, up 30.15% year-on-year but down 26.20% from December.
Entering 2026, NEV buyers in China face a 5% purchase tax, rather than the previous full exemption from the 10% rate.
Tesla’s China-made wholesale figures (including exports) for January 2026 were 69,129 BEVs, up 9.3% year-over-year. Globally, Tesla’s estimated BEV deliveries were around 120,000-145,000, exceeding BYD’s 83,249 BEVs.
BYD’s domestic BEVs were approximately 43,000-50,000 after accounting for ~40,000 BEV exports.
There was reduction of China’s tax exemption from 10% to 5% for vehicles under 300,000 RMB. The end of year-end trade-in subsidies in December 2025 leading to front-loaded demand, seasonal weakness ahead of Lunar New Year (February 16 2026). There is intensifying price wars and competition from rivals like Geely and Xiaomi, and economic slowdown reducing consumer spending.
Nio sales were boosted by ET5T and ES6 refreshes.
Aito, whose cars use smartphone and telecom giant Huawei’s operating system, reported more than 40,000 vehicle deliveries in January, up more than 80% from a year ago.
Leapmotor and Nio also saw year-on-year deliveries rise, to 32,059 and 27,182, respectively.
Smartphone company Xiaomi posted a year-on-year increase to over 39,000 deliveries of its electric cars in January, ahead of a planned upgrade to its SU7 sedan in April. But that was down from over 50,000 deliveries in December.
Geely is now second in NEV. The Geely Xingyuan [Galaxy EV] has taken lowend sales and hurt BYD. In January, Geely sold more than 270,000 cars, including its electric car brands Galaxy and Zeekr, along with exported vehicles — more than 60,000 last month.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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