Author: Jingtao Wu
BYD and Tesla are friends!
Recently, Lian Yubo, Executive Vice President of BYD and Dean of the Automotive Engineering Research Institute, revealed in an interview with CGTN host Kui Yingchun that BYD will provide battery products for Tesla. The news of the two top-tier companies joining forces instantly became a hot topic in the automotive sector.
In the interview, Lian Yubo stated: “Tesla is a very successful company, while BYD has very little experience. BYD respects and admires Tesla, and we are now also good friends with Elon Musk. We are ready to provide him with batteries, and we are all friends.”
According to previous media reports, in early this year, Tesla had officially placed an order for BYD’s Blade Battery (C112F) from its subsidiary, Fudi Battery. Disclosing this information voluntarily in an interview with CGTN may indicate that the cooperative effort has made very positive progress.
On June 7th, according to the latest global ranking of automotive company market values, BYD’s total market value of $127.23 billion surpassed that of Volkswagen Group, rising to the third place globally. In addition, BYD is the only Chinese car company in the top 10 ranking. Meanwhile, Tesla, with a total market value of $740.58 billion, continues to be the leader in the ranking. The collaboration between two out of the top three companies with the highest market values globally is absolutely a major news for the entire automotive industry.
Fudi Battery Co., Ltd., which provides batteries for Tesla, was established in 2019 and was formerly known as BYD Lithium Battery Co., Ltd., founded in 1998. The company has 100% independent research and development, design, and production capabilities in the battery field, with products applied in IT, automotive, new energy, and light rail transportation industries.
As of the beginning of this year, Fudi Battery had already put into operation or was constructing 16 power battery factories nationwide. Fudi Battery plans to exceed 280GWh of production capacity this year, and is expected to exceed 400GWh by 2023.
However, BYD has been bucking the trend recently, with its passenger car sales reaching 114,183 in May, the third consecutive month to exceed 100,000, an increase of 152.8% year-on-year. The cumulative sales from January to May this year reached 512,363 units. The supply of batteries to BYD and Tesla, two major players in terms of sales volume, also poses a significant challenge to Freielectric’s own production capacity.
After this news was announced, A-shares of CATL dropped by 6.78% and Hong Kong shares of BYD rose by 2.18%.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.