BYD Co.’s sales for May were its best this year after heavy discounts offered during the final days of the month lured customers into showrooms.
The Chinese automaking giant sold 382,476 vehicles last month, according to a statement Sunday. Of those, passenger cars were 376,930. Notably, BYD’s battery passenger electric vehicle sales of 204,369 topped its plug-in hybrid sales of 172,561, only the second time pure EV sales have been in front since early 2024.
BYD reduced prices by as much 34% in late May, sending its shares and those of other EV makers tumbling as other automakers followed suit. The deep discounts prompted a rebuke from China’s automobile industry association, which warned against “vicious competition” and the possibility of “triggering a new round of ‘price war’ panic.”
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers didn’t name any company in its Saturday statement but said “disorderly price wars intensify vicious competition, further compressing corporate profit margins.”
Analysts at Citi Research estimated that after BYD’s discounts, traffic to its dealerships may have surged between 30% to 40% week-on-week.
Year-to-date, BYD has now sold 1.76 million units. Its target for the full year is 5.5 million.
