Tesla rivals BYD, Nio Li Auto, XPeng and Zeekr all reported record December China EV sales as the price war intensified.

Chinese car maker BYD saw sales jump at the end of last year, leaving it closer to claiming the title of the world's best-selling electric vehicle (EV) maker of 2024. The company says it sold 207,734 EVs in December, taking its annual total to 1.76 million, as subsidies and discounts helped attract customers.

Chinese automaker BYD Co. (1211.HK, BYDDF) has shattered its 2024 sales targets, delivering 4.27 million electric vehicles — a 41.3% leap from 2023. The company also hit a monthly sales record in December,

Tesla rivals BYD, Nio Li Auto, XPeng and Zeekr all reported record December China EV sales as the price war intensified.

The EV giant sold 1.76 million electric cars in 2024, per figures released on Wednesday, putting it within touching distance of beating Tesla.

Leading Chinese electric car maker BYD's vehicle sales surged in 2024, the company said in a statement, as the firm grows its overseas presence.

All-electric vehicles represented 41.5 per cent of BYD total sales with 1.7m BEVs sold and hybrids securing the rest. Vying with BYD is Tesla, which will reveal its 2024 sales figures in the first quarter of 2025. Tesla delivered 1.8m pure-EVs in 2023, though the American firm was 2.3 per cent down on this figure after nine months in 2024.

Tesla Inc.’s annual vehicle sales dropped for the first time in more than a decade despite a year-end push that sent deliveries to a record in the fourth quarter.

Tesla’s production and delivery numbers for 2024 are out, and the numbers are pretty sobering. The premiere EV company in the US produced 1.77 million cars this year, a drop of about 4 percent compared to the previous year,

Chinese electric-vehicle growth continued in December, with BYD set to take the crown of largest seller from Tesla for the second time. Growth alone, however, wasn’t enough to give all the Chinese EV stocks a boost.

China’s BYD Co. enjoyed a year-end surge to push total sales to 4.25 million passenger cars last year, narrowing its gap with Tesla Inc. as the two vie for the crown of top-selling electric-vehicle maker of 2024.