- BYD has surpassed Tesla by hitting $107 billion in annual revenue for 2024.
- Next up: a gigantic factory the size of San Francisco.
- The 30-year-old automaker’s rapid growth could help to solidify China’s status as a new global powerhouse for auto manufacturing.
Last year, Chinese automaker BYD cast a shadow on other manufacturers when it managed to out-produce EV juggernaut Tesla. And now, BYD has managed to do it again, but this time square in the pocketbook. Its revenue has now surpassed Tesla as well, hitting a cool $107 billion for 2024 versus Tesla’s $97.7 billion.
It doesn’t just stop there, though. When BYD does something, it does it big. For example, its factory in Zhengzhou is growing rapidly. So large, in fact, that its overall footprint will soon be as large, if not larger, than the entire city of San Francisco, California.
It’s All About The Benjamins
Before we get into BYD’s city-sized factory, let’s talk about BYD’s financial success. The 30-year-old automaker has quickly become a recent global success story, especially as the rise of battery-electric vehicles ushered in a new era of growth.
For 2024, BYD brought in a cool $107 billion (777 billion yuan). That’s a staggering 29% increase year-over-year, and even more impressive when you stack it up against its largest EV rival, Tesla, which brought in $97.7 billion in 2024. It’s worth noting that despite the increased revenue, Tesla did best BYD in profits at $7.1 billion (7.3% margin) versus BYD’s $5.44 billion (5.1% margin).
The revenue overtake is a small puzzle piece in the larger picture of a shifting EV landscape in China where locals are shifting their purchasing to domestic brands, something that China has quite a lot of.
Tesla is now facing a threat to its supremacy in China as consumers look at BYD, Xiaomi, and other options that are producing technologically advanced vehicles at extremely competitive prices. And if that domestic adoption continues to rise, BYD’s finances could go straight to the moon.
Zhengzhou: A City Within a City
BYD’s investment in its infrastructure is also a major accomplishment worth calling out. Its latest project in the capital of China’s Henan province is nothing short of absolutely massive—essentially an entire city dedicated to EV production.
The video above shows drone footage of its Mega Factory in Zhengzhou. It doesn’t tell the full story about the scale of BYD’s unfinished campus, which has been split up into eight phases of growth. When finished, the property is expected to span approximately 50 square miles, which is more than ten times the size of Telsa’s Nevada Gigafactory, or about the size of the entire city of San Francisco.
Almost 60,000 of BYD’s 90,000 workers are currently stationed there today and BYD is said to recruit another 200,000 workers from around the world in the coming months. Workers will be able to live on-site in company-provided housing and have access to recreational accommodations on-site. In all, BYD plans to install enough capacity to produce about one million cars annually at its Zhengzhou facility, which is enough to cover about a quarter of the overall sales of its New Energy Vehicles in 2024.
BYD’s ascent to a global EV powerhouse is something to be studied in a textbook. The company has become a formidable opponent in the race to EV supremacy, quickly overtaking its biggest international rival, Tesla, in both EV production volume and revenue.
Let’s be clear that surpassing $100 billion in revenue and constructing a city-sized factory campus is no small feat. This is more a declaration of intent. BYD is proclaiming that it will be the global automotive powerhouse, and that the future of electrification could very well be shaped in the halls of its Zhengzhou factory.
