BYD Passed Up Ford In Global Auto Sales In 2025

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This is quite a notable milestone that has gone under the radar!

BYD delivered 4.6 million vehicles to customers in 2025. That was actually not a great result for BYD. However, it did mark BYD flying past Tesla in BEV sales, which got a lot of attention.

Something that has gotten almost no attention, though, is the fact that BYD — which only sells plugin vehicles — delivered more vehicles to customers in 2025 than Ford did! Ford sold 4.4 million vehicles, being passed up by the Chinese EV producer for the first time.

It is a bit ironic, then, that Ford recently announced massive cuts to its EV plans, EV ambitions, and EV investments. A relatively young automaker went from zero to hero quite rapidly with a focus on plugin vehicles, while Ford has dwindled and faded while barely producing any EV models. Note that a decade before, in 2015, Ford sold 6.6 million vehicles globally. So, while BYD, Tesla, and other BEV-focused companies have grown enormously, Ford sales have shrunk by 33%.

I think you are forced to reflect on how massive this is in the long-term trends of the global auto market. The iconic, gigantic American automaker Ford has been surpassed by young EV producer BYD. Most people in the US and probably also in Europe wouldn’t even know what industry BYD is in. (Or what industry it is primarily in, as it is in several.)

We will have to do a deeper dive into global auto rankings and how they relate to EVs soon, but this stood out as a massive marker that deserved a highlight before we do that. Did BYD end up on the podium in 2025? Stay tuned to find out.