BYD Unleashes an EV Industry Reckoning That Alarms Beijing

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Others leave no room for doubt that BYD, China’s No. 1 selling car brand, is the culprit.

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“It’s obvious to everyone that the biggest player is doing this,” Jochen Siebert, managing director at auto consultancy JSC Automotive, said. “They want a monopoly where everybody else gives up.” BYD’s aggressive tactics are raising concerns over the potential dumping of cars, dealership management issues and “squeezing out suppliers,” he said.

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The pricing turmoil is also unfolding against a backdrop of significant overcapacity. The average production utilization rate in China’s automotive industry was mere 49.5% in 2024, data compiled by Shanghai-based Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute show.

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An April report by AlixPartners meanwhile highlights the intense competition that’s starting to emerge among new energy vehicle makers, or companies that produce pure battery cars and plug-in hybrids. In 2024, the market saw its first ever consolidation among NEV-dedicated brands, with 16 exiting and 13 launching.

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“The Chinese automotive market, despite its substantial scale, is growing at a slower speed. Automakers have to put top priority now on grabbing more market share,” Ron Zheng, a partner at global consultancy Roland Berger GmbH, said.

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Jiyue Auto shows how quickly things can change. A little over a year after launching its first car, the automaker jointly backed by big names Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. and technology giant Baidu Inc., began to scale down production and seek fresh funds.

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It’s a dilemma for all carmakers, but especially smaller ones. “If you don’t follow suit once a leading company makes a price move, you might lose the chance to stay at the table,” AlixPartners consultant Zhang Yichao said. He added that China’s low capacity utilization rate, which is “fundamentally fueling” the competition, is now even under more pressure from export uncertainties. 

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While the push to find an outlet for excess production is thrusting more Chinese brands to export, international markets can only offer some relief.

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“The US market is completely closed and Japan and Korea may close very soon if they see an invasion of Chinese carmakers,” Siebert said. “Russia, which was the biggest export market last year, is now becoming very difficult. I also don’t see Southeast Asia as an opportunity anymore.”

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The pressure of cost cutting has also led analysts to express concern over supply chain finance risks.

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A price cut demand by BYD to one of its suppliers late last year attracted scrutiny around how the car giant may be using supply chain financing to mask its ballooning debt. A report by accounting consultancy GMT Research put BYD’s true net debt at closer to 323 billion yuan ($45 billion), compared with the 27.7 billion yuan officially on its books as of the end of June 2024.

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The pain is also bleeding into China’s dealdership network. Dealership groups in two provinces have gone out of business since April, both of them ones that were selling BYD cars.

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Beijing’s meeting with automakers last week wasn’t the first attempt at a ceasefire. Two years ago, in mid 2023, 16 major automakers, including Tesla Inc., BYD and Geely signed a pact, witnessed by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, to avoid “abnormal pricing.” 

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Within days though, CAAM deleted one of the four commitments, saying that a reference to pricing in the pledge was inappropriate and in breach of a principle enshrined in the nation’s antitrust laws.

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The discounting continued unabated.

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—With assistance from Yasufumi Saito and Chester Dawson.

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