How China's BYD Overtook Tesla - YouTube

It likes to describe itself as. The biggest car brand you've never heard of. Now, China's BYD has overtaken Tesla as the world's largest seller of electric vehicles. Even if you've never heard of BYD, there's a chance you've been in one of its buses.

它喜欢以这样的方式来形容自己。作为你从未听说过的最大汽车品牌。现在，中国的比亚迪已经超过特斯拉，成为全球最大的电动汽车销售商。即使你从未听说过比亚迪，也有可能坐过它的公交车。

While its taxis prowl the streets of some of the world's biggest cities. But buses and taxis aren't the reason why BYD has overtaken Tesla. Instead, it's a fruit of long-term strategic thinking on the part of BYD itself and the Chinese government. And it's setting China up to be the dominant global player in the transportation of the future.

虽然比亚迪的出租车在世界一些最大的城市的街道上巡行。但比亚迪超越特斯拉并非是因为公交车和出租车。相反，这是比亚迪和中国政府长期战略思考的成果。而且，这使得中国成为未来交通领域的主导全球力量。

Electric vehicles, a business that could be worth $8.8 trillion by the end of a decade. Here are the three most important things that have made BYD the king of EVs.

电动汽车可能在未来十年的市场价值达到8.8万亿美元。以下是使比亚迪成为电动汽车之王的三个最重要因素。

The Chinese government has played a huge role in BYD's rise. We've arguably never seen anything like this in terms of the amount of support that China has extended to automakers specifically pertaining to EVs. Beijing has given an estimated $30 billion of tax exemptions to the industry since 2010 and may waive a further $97 billion by 2027.

中国政府在比亚迪崛起中扮演了重要角色。可以说，中国政府在为汽车制造商提供的特定于电动汽车领域的支持规模方面前所未有。自2010年以来，北京已向该行业提供了约300亿美元的税收减免，并可能在2027年前再免除970亿美元。

China actually takes a carrot and stick approach. They set mandatory EV output targets for automakers, but they also offer cheaper loans and cheaper land. R&D subsidies to all those EV makers. And BYD has been a massive beneficiary of that. It still sells most of its electric vehicles in its home market. But of course, Tesla has also benefited from Chinese subsidies, which is where the second reason for BYD's rise comes in.

中国实际上采取了一种胡萝卜加大棒的策略。他们给汽车制造商设定了强制性的电动汽车产量目标，同时还提供更便宜的贷款和土地、研发补贴给所有电动汽车制造商。比亚迪受益匪浅。它仍然在国内市场销售大部分电动汽车。当然，特斯拉也从中国的补贴中受益，这就是比亚迪崛起的第二个原因所在。

Most of BYD's cars are simply a lot cheaper than Tesla's. In fact, it sells 10 popular models starting from less than Tesla's cheapest offering for the Model 3 sedan. And BYD sells a lot more of the cheaper vehicles in its lineup. They have very cheap model starting from $10,000. Their approach has been extremely different in the sense that Elon Musk believed that you had to sort of start from the high end with a sexy performance car to get people interested in electric cars and then work your way down the price spectrum. BYD went at it from the other end where it was about cheap taxis and buses that needed a heck of a lot of batteries and really sort of drove down the prices of the batteries that needed a heck of a lot of batteries. And really sort of drove down the prices of the batteries that they could put into passenger cars.

比亚迪（BYD）的大部分车型比特斯拉（Tesla）便宜得多。事实上，它销售的10款热门车型的起售价甚至低于特斯拉Model 3轿车的最低价位。而BYD在其产品线中销售了更多更便宜的车型。他们有一款仅售1万美元的廉价车型。他们的方法与特斯拉截然不同，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）认为，要让人们对电动车产生兴趣，首先必须推出高端而性能出众的汽车，然后逐渐降低价格。而比亚迪则从另一端入手，首先推出了廉价的出租车和公交车，这些车需要大量电池，从而推动电池的价格下降。因此，他们可以将价格较低的电池应用于乘用车中。

While the average price paid for Tesla is about $45,000, the average BYD sells to roughly half that. That, of course, raises the question, how can it sell them so cheaply? The secret to that price tag lies in what is known as vertical integration. Our vertical integration capability gives us the flexibility to fast the response to the market to a trend, as well as the better support for brand developing and customer service. That's a fancy way of saying that they make a lot of the things that go into their vehicles themselves.

尽管特斯拉的平均售价约为45,000美元，比亚迪的平均售价大致只有一半。这当然引发了一个问题，它是如何以如此低廉的价格销售的呢? 这个价格的秘诀在于所谓的垂直整合。我们垂直整合的能力使我们能够更灵活地快速应对市场趋势，同时更好地支持品牌发展和客户服务。换句话说，他们自己制造了很多进入他们的汽车的东西。

Car makers usually buy most components from suppliers such as Bosch, Continental and Active. Volkswagen, for instance, only makes 35% of the parts in its ID3 electric car. Tesla, meanwhile, makes 68% of the parts that go into its Model 3 made in the US. BYD makes 75% of the parts that go into the seal, its flagship model. The most important factor is that BYD is the only auto maker that produces all of its batteries in-house. That was hugely important during the pandemic when the supply chains were just absolutely in a state of chaos for the industry. The fact that BYD was in control of its own destiny gave them a huge leg up over the rest of the industry. And especially as it pertains to batteries, this is a company that has been in the battery space since the 1990s.

汽车制造商通常从供应商（如博世、康那迪和艾克蒙）购买大部分零部件。例如，大众汽车在其ID3电动汽车中仅生产35%的零部件。而特斯拉在美国生产的Model 3只生产68%的零部件。比亚迪则生产了自家旗舰车型Seal的75%零部件。最重要的因素在于比亚迪是唯一一家在自家工厂生产所有电池的汽车制造商。在疫情大流行期间，供应链完全混乱，这一点尤其重要。比亚迪能够掌控自己的命运，使他们在整个行业中处于极为有利的地位。尤其是在电池方面，比亚迪自上世纪90年代以来一直专注于该领域。

BYD actually stands for build your dreams. It started out in 1995 as a battery company. They make rechargeable batteries for mobile phones and other electronics products. And then the company got into the auto business in 2003. Making its own batteries and other components helped it reduce a lot of costs. That's attracted some big name investors.

BYD（比亚迪）实际上代表着“创造你的梦想”。它始于1995年作为一家电池公司。他们生产可充电电池用于手机和其他电子产品。随后，在2003年，公司进入了汽车业务。自行生产电池和其他零部件帮助他们大大降低了成本。这吸引了一些大牌投资者。

Call it the continued BYD promotional roadshow and investor Warren Buffett brought his buddy Bill Gates along for the ride here in Beijing. It was fantastic, kind of amazed at the quality of that vehicle. Warren Buffett was one of the biggest early investors in BYD through his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. And the battery technology might also give BYD a technological edge over some rivals. It uses lithium-ion phosphate, which is not only cheaper than other batteries. It's also packaged a lot more compactly. And chemistry is a core expertise of founder Wang Chongfu. He's sort of the anti-elan musk. Wang is a chemist by training and an engineer. And an anecdote that one of our reporters was told was that when he was told he needed to dress up a bit for an investor meeting, he stopped to buy shirts just to buy shirts. He's sort of off the street. And so he's far from one of the flashier executives in the auto industry.

这是一个持续的比亚迪(BYD)促销路演，并且投资者沃伦·巴菲特还带着他的朋友比尔·盖茨一同来到北京参观。这真是太棒了，对那辆车的质量感到惊讶。沃伦·巴菲特是比亚迪的早期最大投资者之一，他通过他的控股公司伯克希尔·哈撒韦成为了比亚迪的投资人。而电池技术也可能使比亚迪在一些竞争对手中处于技术优势地位。它使用的是磷酸锂电池，不仅比其他电池更便宜，而且包装更紧凑。而创始人王传福的核心专长就是化学。他有点像反对埃隆·马斯克的人。王传福是一个受过化学训练的工程师。我们的记者曾听说过一个轶事，就是他在被告知需要为一次投资者会议装扮得体时，他停下来去买了一些衬衫。他有点不拘小节，与汽车行业中那些花哨的高管相去甚远。

This is all set BYD up to be the biggest player in electric vehicles. The question now is whether it can become one of the world's biggest car makers, full stop. And that means growing outside of China. In 2021, BYD started to step up its global expansion. It started to launch more power.

这一切都已为比亚迪（BYD）打下了成为电动汽车市场最大参与者的基础。现在的问题是它是否能成为世界上最大的汽车制造商之一，毫无疑问，这意味着要在中国以外的地方实现增长。在2021年，比亚迪开始加快全球扩张步伐。它开始发力推出更多产品。

In 2021, BYD started to step up its global expansion. It started to launch more power. In 2021, BYD started to step up its global expansion. It started to launch more passenger vehicles across the global markets, including Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe. It's still a very new entrant in global markets. The volume contribution is rising but still small. Even so, BYD, inside three years, has become one of the top-selling EV brands in markets such as Thailand, Brazil and Australia. It also remains to be seen whether this company can quickly grow in some of these newer markets that it's entering where it isn't well known. It isn't recognized.

2021年，比亚迪开始加大全球扩张的步伐。它开始在全球市场推出更多的乘用车型。虽然在全球市场上还是一个非常新的进入者，销量的贡献持续上升但仍然很小。即便如此，仅在三年内，比亚迪已成为泰国、巴西和澳大利亚等市场上畅销的电动汽车品牌之一。然而，这家公司能否在一些尚未闻名的新市场上迅速增长仍然有待观察。它尚未被认同或认可。

The two most prominent challenges in BYD's global expansion will be first, regulation uncertainties and second brand awareness. The European Union is investigating into Chinese EV subsidies. Chinese automakers are exporting more of their EVs. These are produced in China, so the production costs are pretty low, which allows the automakers to set their prices in the Europe cheaper than the European counterparts, which has been very alarming to the European oil industry. One way around that will be to increase the amount of local production. Definitely localization is one of the very important strategies of BYD's Europe strategy. And so we are considering where evaluation different locations in Europe and where we can build the cost.

BYD在全球扩张中面临的两个最主要挑战分别是法规不确定性和品牌知名度。欧盟正在调查中国的电动车补贴政策。中国汽车制造商正在增加对欧洲的电动车出口。这些车辆在中国生产，因此生产成本较低，使得中国汽车制造商能够以比欧洲同行更低廉的价格在欧洲市场销售，这对欧洲的石油行业来说是非常令人担忧的。解决这个问题的一种方法是增加本地产能。无疑地，本地化是BYD在欧洲市场战略中非常重要的一部分。因此，我们正在考虑评估欧洲不同地点的条件，确定在哪里进行生产以降低成本。

Apart from buses and trucks, BYD isn't in the US. The trade tensions between Beijing and Washington are keeping BYD back and giving them pause to entering the US market. For years automotive experts have predicted established car making giants like GM, Volkswagen or Toyota would catch up with Tesla in electric vehicles. In hindsight, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that Chinese rival got there fast.

除了公共汽车和卡车，比亚迪在美国市场并不活跃。北京和华盛顿之间的贸易紧张关系让比亚迪望而却步，不敢进入美国市场。多年来，汽车专家一直预测像通用、大众或丰田这样的传统汽车巨头会在电动汽车领域赶上特斯拉。回想起来，中国的竞争对手能够迅速赶超特斯拉或许并不意外。