China's Byd Set to Overtake Tesla as Top Ev Seller
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As China's BYD edges out Tesla as the top EV seller, commenters are debating whether Tesla has squandered its early lead, with some pointing to its Autopilot and Robotaxi advancements as evidence of its continued innovation. However, others counter that Tesla's sales are down year-over-year, rendering its stock price a dubious indicator of success. The discussion reveals a divide between those who praise Tesla's technology and those who criticize its business performance, with some even questioning the reliability of numbers coming out of China. Amidst the debate, a consensus emerges that Tesla's status as a legacy EV manufacturer may be at risk as it falls behind the technology curve.
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Jan 1, 2026 at 9:51 PM EST
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Tesla could have more or less owned the US car industry if it had pushed its advantage aggressively. If Musk had used the SpaceX model and appointed someone competent to run Tesla while he was a figurehead of sorts Tesla would be many times its size.
Instead we had a chaotic Tesla expansion, the '"pedo guy" guy' and Musk hiding in the K-Hole from his apparent childhood traumas.
With Musk now pretty much fully off the reservation and into far right politics, Trump neutering of the EV transition (also Musk's doing) and pushing fossil fuels, Tesla has a grim future and may end up in the dustbin of history sooner than later.
(I say this as a Tesla owner who literally doesnt drive anymore since I just use autopilot. I also live in downtown austin and see Robotaxis everywhere)
Lol I've pretty much checked out of HN since the discussion here is reddit r/technology level of competence.
The idea that TSLA is failing is so completely moronic that it's astonishing.
I agree with you. It could put a huge dent in the tens of thousands of American lives lost every year if autonomous driving was mandated. Barring that, at least I'll protect my own family by using self-driving in the largest possible car (truck) I can buy.
As a cyclist in a very truck-obsessed state I really hate them and their drivers scare me. And because of that I have a really hard time convincing myself that I should be in one too vs. a smaller more practical car. But at the same time I realize that me family getting hit in a Honda Accord (most likely by a much larger car) is going to be quite a bit worse than if we get hit in a Cybertruck or GMC Sierra.
Did you mean shouldn't? Why would scaring(?) a random cyclist take precedence over your family's safety? Is this the moral circle heatmap meme again?
Say what you want about Elon, his politics, whatever, but the cars and technology are absolutely incredible.
Tesla is securing its status as a legacy EV manufacturer. They are the behind the EV technology curve these days. For example they don't charge as fast as other EVs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy46Ag0djjk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAky0r8n5sk
The Zeekr 7X charges at a peak of 415 kW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rb4U2CSYY0
As an owner of two Tesla and a frequent user of autopilot with FSD, I don’t believe we will be seeing a significant rollout in any but the easiest to travel areas. SF, LA, Seattle or the other places Waymo currently is either running or preparing to operate are much more challenging road environments than Austin, and Waymo is already fully autonomous with years of track record in these areas. There’s no chance robotaxi will overtake Waymo - I use them often, use FSD often. They aren’t comparable - Waymo is considerably more advanced and capable.
Sorry man, I wished Tesla was going to win out, but by shifting focus to ever more bizarre efforts away from their core cars (when’s the last time a real X or S model refresh happened?) they lost the initiative. BYD and the other legion of Chinese EV are going to eat Tesla alive within 5 years. I’ve had the chance to ride in and drive many of the brands overseas and they are a fraction the price and about as good. It’s over.
As a business, they've seen declining yearly revenues (2025 is expected to be lower overall) and declining sales on a YoY basis in a sector that has seen tremendous growth. The article we're on literally is how Tesla squandered their lead over BYD.
Autopilot and FSD are neat (for some definition of neat) but have clear competitors with Waymo being far ahead in deployment. BYD has their own developing system that's not as good but it's not clear to be that FSD will be some kind of enduring advantage either given that parallel systems are also being developed.
Incidentally the same way people defend Bitcoin.
Meanwhile BYD had US money with a a friendly government enhancing it.
You shouldn’t be angry with Musk, you should be angry with Trump/Biden (ignore left/right they both let Asia take Battery and chip technology on their watch).
Not defending Elon, he’s clearly got some flaws, but Telsa’s expansion has been phenomenal, even with massive head winds against it, just look at Rivian, VW, Lucid, Ford, GM… or anyone if you want to talk about “squandering”.
I mean, you should be mad at both. But it started far before either of their presidencies.
Which policy or policies?
BYD Sells 4.6M Vehicles in 2025, Meets Revised Sales Goal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46454977 - Jan 2026 (318 comments)
My home country has a 100% tariff on EV Chinese-made electric vehicles. But if you're a country that doesn't have an domestic industry to protect, or don't mind unfair trading practices (or whatever mix of reasons countries are giving for essentially blocking BYD), then why wouldn't you welcome them? I don't see this ending well for traditional auto makers.
BYD makes twice as many batteries for Tesla cars than Tesla does.
Most Tesla cars are made in China.