Another fiscal year and another bold prediction that Tesla’s long-running reign as the global market share leader will end. As previously predicted, BYD is once again expected to usurp Tesla in total BEV sales in 2025, and it may actually happen this time.
The possibility of Build Your Dreams (BYD) overtaking Tesla in global BEV market share has teetered on the fringe of fruition for years now as the Chinese auto conglomerate has become one of the most innovative and quickly expanding companies in its respective segment.
BYD has expanded its market reach throughout Asia and into new markets with sales and localized production around Europe, South America, and even Mexico (maybe).
Such rapid expansion has resulted in record sales for BYD so far. In 2024, it marked a record year, achieving over $100 billion in sales, which has continued into 2025 thus far. Earlier this week, we reported that through the first three months of 2025, BYD had sold over one million New Energy Vehicles (NEVs), up 60% from the 626,263 sold in Q1 2024.
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As such, Tech research firm Counterpoint has predicted BYD will (finally) overtake Tesla in global BEV market share in 2025. Forgive us if you’ve heard this one before.
In late 2023, Counterpoint shared that by the end of Q3 2023, BYD had caught up with Tesla, holding 17% of all global BEV sales and 68% YoY growth. Furthermore, the Chinese automaker’s sales sheet was growing at a more rapid rate than Tesla’s, predicting it would overtake the BEV crown sometime in 2024, if not by the end of 2023. That didn’t happen. Tesla ended up having a strong Q4 2023 but BYD continued to narrow its gap.
Counterpoint reiterated its prediction in the summer of 2024, which almost came true. By the end of the 2024 fiscal year, BYD had sold 1.76 million BEVs but was just edged out by Tesla, which sold 1.78 million.
Three months into 2025, Counterpoint likes what it sees in BYD and is once again predicting the automaker will finally overtake Tesla in BEV market share this year.
BYD Yangwang U7 ultra-luxury electric sedan (Source: Yangwang)
BYD predicted to own a 15.7% BEV market share over Tesla
Counterpoint shared its latest Global Passenger EV Forecast this week. It anticipates that BYD will end 2025 with a 15.7% piece of the BEV market share pie, compared to 15.3% for Tesla. The tech research firm cited BYD’s proprietary technology, such as its new Super E-Platform, 1,000 kW chargers, and Blade Batteries, as a leap in BEV performance and ease of use for customers, leading to even more sales. Counterpoint research analyst, Abhik Mukherjee, elaborated:
The system can deliver 400 km of range in just 5 minutes, setting a new industry benchmark, far outpacing Tesla’s Supercharger, which adds about 275 km in 10 minutes. This technological leap is expected to significantly ease consumer concerns around charging time and boost EV adoption by reducing charging anxiety.
Conversely, Counterpoint cited Tesla’s recent struggles as evidence that it will cede its market share crown in 2025. We’ve seen a less-than-rosy outlook on Cybertruck sales. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become a polarizing figure in the political sector, turning many customers off to the brand in regions like Europe and the US.
Counterpoint also noted rising geopolitical and trade tensions between the US and China and increased tariffs on Chinese EV components brought on by Musk’s unusual new alliance with President Trump, further rattling Tesla’s supply chain. Those hiccups, combined with delayed product launches and intensifying competition in BEV technologies, appear to be enough to dethrone the long-championed American automaker. Associate Director Liz Lee spoke about Musk essentially shooting himself in the foot by bringing a sleeping bag into the oval office:
CEO Elon Musk has scored somewhat of an own goal against Tesla and we are about to catch a glimpse of how much the company’s sales were hurt in Q1 2025. This is a big opportunity for BYD and if they deliver on the fast-charging promise, this could be the turning point for BYD and the China BEV story globally.
Thanks to BYD’s strategy (similar to Tesla’s) to achieve vertical integration, the Chinese automaker could overtake Tesla’s market share this year and not forfeit its lead for quite some time. This team around, it feels less like a question of “if,” and more of a matter of “when.” We should have a better idea when Q2 2025 reports from both companies hit the public.
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Tesla has been forced to reimburse a customer’s Full Self-Driving package after an arbitrator determined that the automaker failed to deliver it.
Tesla has been promising its car owners that every vehicle it has built since 2016 has all the hardware capable of unsupervised self-driving.
The automaker has been selling a “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) package that is supposed to deliver this unsupervised self-driving capability through over-the-air software updates.
Almost a decade later, Tesla has yet to deliver on its promise, and its claim that the cars’ hardware is capable of self-driving has been proven wrong. Tesla had to update all cars with HW2 and 2.5 computers to HW3 computers.
Tesla is now attempting to deliver its promise of unsupervised self-driving on HW4 cars, which have been in production since 2023-2024, depending on the model. However, there are still significant doubts about this being possible, as the best available data indicate that Tesla only achieves about 500 miles between critical disengagements with the latest software on the hardware.
On the other hand, many customers are losing faith in Tesla’s ability to deliver on its promise and manage this computer retrofit situation. Some of them have been seeking to be reimbursed for their purchase of the Full Self-Driving package, which Tesla sold from $8,000 to $15,000.
A Tesla owner in Washington managed to get the automaker to reimburse the FSD package, but it wasn’t easy.
The 2021 Model Y was Marc Dobin and his wife’s third Tesla. Due to his wife’s declining mobility, Dobin was intrigued about the FSD package as a potential way to give her more independence. He wrote in a blog post:
But FSD was more than hype for us. The promise of a car that could drive my wife around gave us hope that she’d maintain independence as her motor skills declined. We paid an extra $10,000 for FSD.
Tesla’s FSD quickly disillusioned Dobin. First, he couldn’t even enable it due to Tesla restricting the Beta access through a “safety score” system, something he pointed out was never mentioned in the contract.
Furthermore, the feature required the supervision of a driver at all times, which was not what Tesla sold to customers.
Tesla doesn’t make it easy for customers in the US to seek a refund or to sue Tesla as it forces buyers to go through arbitration through its sales contract.
That didn’t deter Dobin, who happens to be a lawyer with years of experience in arbitration. It took almost a year, but Tesla and Dobin eventually found themselves in arbitration, and it didn’t go well for the automaker:
Almost a year after filing, the evidentiary hearing was held via Zoom. Tesla produced one witness: a Field Technical Specialist who admitted he hadn’t checked what equipment shipped with our car, hadn’t reviewed our driving logs, and didn’t know details about the FSD system installed on our car, if any. He hadn’t spoken to any sales rep we dealt with or reviewed the contract’s integration clause.
There were both a Tesla lawyer and an outside counsel representing Tesla at the hearing, but the witness was not equipped to answer questions.
Dobin wrote:
He was a service technician, not a lawyer or salesperson. But that’s who Tesla brought to the hearing. At the end, I genuinely felt bad for him because Tesla set him up to be a human punching bag—someone unprepared to answer key questions, forced to defend a system he clearly didn’t understand. While I was examining him, a Tesla in-house lawyer sat silently, while the company’s outside counsel tried to soften the blows of the witness’ testimony.
He focused on Tesla’s lack of disclosure regarding the safety score and the fact that the system does not meet the promises made to customers.
The arbitrator sided with Dobin and wrote:
The evidence is persuasive that the feature was not functional, operational, or otherwise available.”
Tesla was forced to reimburse the FSD package $10,000 plus taxes, and pay for the almost $8,000 in arbitration fees.
Since Tesla forces arbitration through its contracts, it is required to cover the cost.
Electrek’s Take
This is interesting. Tesla assigned two lawyers to this case in an attempt to avoid reimbursing $10,000, knowing it would have to cover the expensive arbitration fees – most likely losing tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
It makes no sense to me. Tesla should have a standing offer to reimburse FSD for anyone who requests it until it can actually deliver on its promise of unsupervised self-driving.
That’s the right thing to do, and the fact that Tesla would waste money trying to fight customers requesting a refund is really telling.
Tesla is simply not ready to do the right thing here, and it doesn’t bode well for the computer retrofits and all the other liabilities around Tesla FSD.
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After hitting a major milestone on Monday, BYD claimed it’s about to unleash “the largest-scale smart driving OTA in history.”
BYD preps for the largest-scale software update
BYD announced on Weibo that there are now over 1 million vehicles on the road with its God’s Eye smart driving system.
The milestone comes after it upgraded 21 of its top-selling vehicles with the smart driving tech in February, at no extra cost. Even its most affordable EV, the Seagull, which starts at under $10,000 (69,800 yuan), got the upgrade.
BYD didn’t reveal any specifics, only promising “it is safer and smarter.” The Chinese EV giant has three different “God’s Eye” levels: A, B, and C.
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The highest, God’s Eye A, is typically reserved for BYD’s ultra-luxury Yangwang brand, which utilizes its DiPilot 600 smart cockpit with three LiDARs.
God’s Eye B is used for other luxury and higher-end models, including those under Denza, which utilize DiPilot 300 and one or two LiDARs.
The base God’s Eye C system, used for BYD brand models, includes 12 cameras, five wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic radars, all supported by DiPilot 100.
Last week, BYD’s luxury off-road brand, Fang Cheng Bao, launched a limited-time offer for Huawei’s Qiankun Intelligent Driving High-end Function Package. The discount cuts the price from 32,000 yuan ($4,500) to just 12,000 yuan ($1,700).
BYD Seagull EV testing with God’s Eye C smart driving system (Source: BYD)
After selling another 382,585 vehicles in June, BYD now has over 2.1 million in cumulative sales in the first half of 2025, up 33% from last year.
With the “largest-scale smart driving” update coming soon, BYD’s vehicles are about to gain new functions and safety features. Check back soon for more details.
BYD claims it’s “capable of leading the transformation and popularization of intelligent driving” with over 5,000 engineers dedicated to the field. As the world’s largest NEV maker, BYD said it’s committed to transforming the auto industry with safer and more sustainable solutions for global markets.
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Kia’s electric SUV is a hit in the UK. The EV3 was the most popular retail EV through the first half of 2025, pushing Kia to become the UK’s third top-selling car brand so far this year.
Kia EV3 leads as the UK’s most popular retail EV
The EV3 is Kia’s fastest-selling EV in the UK and a massive part of the brand’s success this year. Kia said the compact electric SUV contributed to its best-ever June, Q2, and first half EV registrations so far this year.
In January, the EV3 “started with a bang,” racing out to become the UK’s most popular retail EV. The EV3 was the best-selling retail EV in the UK and the fourth best-selling EV overall in the first quarter, including commercial vehicles.
Through the first half of the year, the Kia EV3 maintained its crown as the UK’s most popular EV with 6,293 registrations.
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The EV3 starts at £33,005 ($42,500) as the ‘brand’s most affordable EV yet.” It’s available with two battery packs: 58.3 kWh or 81.48 kWh, providing a WLTP range of up to 430 km (270 miles) and 599 km (375 miles), respectively.
Kia EV3 (Source: Kia)
Kia sold 31,643 electrified vehicles in the first half of 2025. Although this includes fully electric vehicles (EVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), and hybrids (HEVs), it still accounts for over half of Kia’s total of 62,005 registrations.
Kia EV3 (Source: Kia)
After opening orders for the EV4 last week, Kia’s first electric hatchback, the brand expects to see even more demand throughout 2025. With up to 388 miles WLTP range, it’s also the longest-range Kia EV to date.
Next year, Kia will introduce the entry-level EV2, which will sit below the EV3 in Kia’s lineup. Kia is looking to add an even more affordable EV to sit below the EV2. It will start at under $30,000 (€25,000), but we likely won’t see it until closer toward the end of the decade.
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