BYD Dolphin Sells 462,558 Units in Two Years, Beats Tesla Model 3 By 67.4%

I first learned about this number through CarNewsChina. Sort of: According to that website, the Dolphin sold 462,000 units. However, CarNewsChina published a table that breaks the numbers in a strange way: it suggests that sales in China minus the ones abroad give us the total figure, which does not make sense. The Chinese website MyDrivers helped me clarify that by confirming that the worldwide sales were 462,558 units.

If you check the CarNewsChina table, it also says that, but you have to rectify its column titles. As you must have realized, China's sales are not where the table said they were: they are under the "Total" title. On the other hand, the China title actually refers to worldwide sales. Sum all of them – from all the months in these two years – and you also get 462,558 units of the Dolphin.

BYD started delivering the C-segment hatchback on August 29, 2021. To celebrate Dolphin's second anniversary, it summed all sales until the end of August 2023. Considering deliveries almost started in September 2021, there's a good excuse for including 25 months in these two years. In the only three days BYD had left in August 2021, it delivered 1,755 cars. Tesla only handed 1,541 Model 3 units in Q4 2017, which already shows the speed difference between them.

However, in the American battery electric vehicle (BEV) maker's case, it started handing the Model 3 to customers on July 28, 2017. The deal is that Tesla does not disclose monthly deliveries; it only reveals those happening after each quarter.

That said, I decided to count deliveries from Q3 2017 until Q2 2019. If I were to include Q3 2019, the American BEV would have nine quarters of results to compare with BYD's two years – or eight quarters. Just not to keep you in the dark, the Model 3 sold 356,084 units from Q3 2017 until Q3 2019, or 77% of the Dolphin's sales numbers in two years. When I did the math properly, the Tesla's figure dropped to 276,381. That's 59.8% of what the Chinese hatchback achieved in the same amount of time.

If you take the Model 3's sales as a reference, the Dolphin beats it by 67.4% when you limit its sales numbers from Q3 2017 to Q2 2019. Should you include Q3 2019, the Model 3 loses by 29.9%. Regardless of the method you consider to be just in calculating this, BYD's high-volume vehicle did better in its first two years than the Model 3.

People may argue that the Model 3 is a larger and more expensive car, but so is the Model Y. Yet, it has become the best-selling vehicle in Europe, which shows this argument is not relevant to the discussion, even if a more affordable car may indeed sell in higher numbers more easily. The idea here is to compare the speed at which each company moved with their first high-volume BEVs for international markets.

It is possible that BYD could beat Tesla as the world's largest BEV manufacturer just with the Chinese market, but it knows that having other countries on board can accelerate that process. More than that, the Chinese BEV maker is also aware that it depends on local production to succeed. Just check what the European Union recently ruled.

Ursula von der Leyen announced an investigation on September 13 into Chinese subsidies to its local BEV makers. The European Commission president said that these companies may face punitive tariffs on top of the 10% import tax if the investigation confirms state subsidies in China are benefiting them. Ironically, I wrote in April that the Dolphin was much more expensive in Europe than it was in its home country. Apparently, BYD's efforts to make it less affordable did not work as planned, hence plan B: having a factory on European soil. To be honest, it was part of plan A, but the EU may have turned it into something else.

Rumor has it that BYD may buy Ford's factory in Saarlouis, Germany, which still manufactures the Focus. When production ends, the American automaker will sell the premises, just like it sold its Brazilian factory in Camaçari. BYD already sealed the deal in Brazil, but it also said that it may build its own factory in Europe. Considering that the Focus production will only end in 2025, the Chinese BEV maker may want to accelerate things – especially after the EU investigation was announced.

Predictably, VDA (Germany's auto association) already said it does not agree with any sanction against Chinese competitors. The reason is that Volkswagen and other German carmakers make a lot of money in China. Until very recently, Volkswagen was the market leader there, a historic position that BYD altered with higher sales volumes. The good news for the German companies is that they already make cars in China, while no Chinese carmaker builds their products in Europe. BYD wants that to change.

By producing locally, BYD will not be seen as a threat. On the contrary: it will employ thousands of local people, pay taxes (when incentives are over), improve the economy, etc. In Brazil, it already said it will manufacture the Dolphin, which is also an obvious target for the European market. On second thought, it may prioritize the ATTO 3 – a compact SUV – in the Old Continent. As I have written recently, over 50% of all cars sold in Europe this year are SUVs.

I'll try to check how well the ATTO 3 is selling when it completes two years: its first units were delivered to customers in February 2022. The Seal and Seagull are also good candidates for a sales analysis in a few months, with a serious risk of repeating the current result. When you look more closely, the danger for Tesla is not that the Dolphin sold more cars than the Model 3 in two years; it is that the Chinese competitor can repeat that with at least three other models – so far. While BYD has several new cars in the pipeline, the American BEV maker is struggling to deliver the Cybertruck.