BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu used the company’s annual general meeting this week to lay out a bold vision: overtaking every global automaker to claim the No.1 spot by 2030. But the contrast between that ambition and the stock’s current plight could hardly be starker. The shares have slid to €9.64, a whisker above their 52-week low and some 79% below the year’s peak of €44.99. The 30-day slide alone has erased nearly 13% of the equity’s value.
Compounding the market’s unease, the U.S. Department of Defense added BYD to a blacklist on June 8, accusing the company of ties to the Chinese military. The ban immediately prohibits BYD from entering direct contracts with the Pentagon, and after one year will extend to third-party suppliers. BYD has denied the allegations and said it is weighing legal options.
Wang acknowledged that the near-term sales trajectory hinges on one critical factor: battery production. The company is racing to scale up output of its next-generation Blade battery, which can charge from 10% to 70% in just five minutes. Current capacity is being expanded to support up to 30,000 additional vehicles per month, though the bulk of the production jump is expected only in 2027. That timeline puts intense pressure on a company that had just broken a frustrating streak.
After eight consecutive months of year-over-year declines, BYD sold roughly 377,000 passenger cars in May — an 8.2% advance from the prior year. The real fireworks came from overseas, where exports surged 81% to more than 160,000 units, setting a new monthly record. For the full year, BYD is targeting 1.6 million export deliveries, a figure it now believes could be exceeded.
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To dodge trade barriers, the automaker is aggressively localizing production. A new plant in Hungary will support plans to build three-quarters of its European sales locally. Additional factories are under construction in Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil. In Europe alone, BYD intends to install roughly 3,000 fast-charging stations by the end of 2026, including about 300 in Germany.
On the product front, BYD is pushing deeper into the premium segment. The three-row electric SUV “Great Tang” officially launches on June 17, backed by over 100,000 pre-orders received as of early May. It offers a range of up to 950 kilometers under China’s CLTC cycle. A flagship sedan, the “Great Han”, will follow with a WLTP-equivalent range of more than 1,000 kilometers and standard LiDAR hardware, available as either a pure EV or plug-in hybrid. Wang is also chasing Level-3 autonomous driving approvals across Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America, leveraging data from more than 3.15 million vehicles already equipped with driver-assistance systems.
Wang told shareholders he believes the company is massively undervalued, pointing to the growing fleet of connected cars and the revenue potential from software and autonomous services. Yet the gulf between operational momentum and the stock’s performance remains wide. The true test of whether the 2027 capacity expansion and the new luxury models can reverse the equity’s fortunes will come with the half-year numbers due this summer.
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