BYD finds itself in an unusual position for a company with a hot-selling product line: it cannot make enough batteries to keep up with demand. Chairman Wang Chuanfu has publicly flagged bottlenecks in the supply of the company’s proprietary Blade Battery technology, a constraint that is now delaying the launch of its most anticipated new model and testing the limits of its global expansion.
The Great Tang SUV, BYD’s next flagship, was supposed to hit the Chinese market in May. Instead, the launch has been pushed to June 8. The reason is not a lack of interest—far from it. BYD logged more than 100,000 pre-orders within two weeks of opening reservations at the Beijing Auto Show, including over 30,000 in the first 24 hours. Preliminary dealer data had already pointed to upwards of 60,000 units. The problem is that the second-generation Blade Battery and the fast-charging platform the Great Tang relies on simply cannot be produced quickly enough. The SUV delivers a range of up to 950 kilometres on the CLTC cycle and can charge from 10% to 70% in five minutes—impressive specs that mean little if the cars cannot reach showrooms.
BYD’s own executives acknowledge the pinch. Wang Chuanfu has admitted that demand for models equipped with the fast-charge architecture has outpaced current battery capacity. Multiple dealerships reported they had not yet received display vehicles or initial stock, forcing BYD to coordinate the launch more tightly with nationwide deliveries to avoid a reputational stumble at a critical moment.
Home market headwinds
The supply squeeze comes at a delicate time in BYD’s domestic business. China’s passenger-vehicle market contracted 21% year-on-year in April, and the intense price war that has gripped the sector is squeezing margins. The previous-generation Tang L is already feeling the transition pain: its sales in China slumped to just 791 units in April, well below year-ago levels, as buyers held out for the new model.
The financial fallout is visible. First-quarter net profit dropped 55.4% year-on-year to 4.09 billion yuan, while revenue also declined. That makes the battery bottleneck particularly costly—strong product demand is failing to translate into earnings growth at home.
Exports provide a counterweight
Overseas, the picture is markedly brighter. BYD’s exports of passenger cars and pickups hit 134,542 units in April, a 70.9% surge from a year earlier. In Europe, new registrations of BYD electric vehicles in the EU, EFTA and the UK rose more than 155% in the first quarter. The company has now set an export target of 1.5 million vehicles for 2026.
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Europe is also where BYD is scrambling to secure local manufacturing to sidestep a 17% EU tariff on Chinese-made EVs. Vice-President Li Ke has confirmed the group is targeting acquisitions of existing plants rather than greenfield builds. Talks are under way over a Volkswagen factory in Germany that the Wolfsburg group wants to offload due to overcapacity, and sites linked to Maserati in Italy and France are also under review. A local production footprint would eliminate the tariff disadvantage and support the 270% growth BYD recorded in Europe in 2025—a pace that analysts say is hard to defend without on-the-ground assembly.
Meanwhile, BYD is deepening its footprint in Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, it opened the “BYD Mansion Macalister” in Penang, housed in a restored colonial-era building, bringing its local network to more than 43 showrooms and 25 service centres. In Indonesia, the company launched its first plug-in hybrid, the BYD M6 MPV, which boasts a combined range of 1,800 kilometres and fuel consumption of 65 kilometres per litre. The move into hybrids reflects the reality of emerging markets where charging infrastructure still lags.
Analysts stay bullish
Despite the near-term production constraints, HSBC Research has maintained a buy rating on BYD with a price target of HKD 146. The bank argues that export momentum is compensating for the domestic slowdown and has itself opened a $4 billion credit line to support Chinese cleantech companies, including EV makers, in their international expansion.
BYD remains the world’s second-largest supplier of installed EV batteries, with volumes up 31.3% recently. But the Blade-Battery bottleneck threatens to cap that growth unless production capacity can be ramped up to match the vehicle programme. The market seems to be giving management the benefit of the doubt for now: in Hong Kong, BYD shares closed at HKD 110.30, up 4.95% on the day.
Yet the clock is ticking. Rivals are not standing still; Ford has announced seven new European models by 2029. For BYD, the next few months will determine whether this is a temporary hiccup in a long-term growth story—or the first sign that supply cannot keep pace with ambition.
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