BYD

Wang Chuanfu was a chemist who grew up in poverty — his parents both died by the time he was 15. He borrowed money to start a rechargeable battery factory in 1995 in Shenzhen.

Rather than buying expensive automated production lines from Japan, he reverse-engineered the manufacturing process and used cheap manual labor. Within five years, BYD was supplying batteries to Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung.

In 2003, Wang made a move that shocked everyone: he bought a failing state-owned car company called Qinchuan Automobile. Auto industry executives laughed — a battery guy making cars?

Wang's plan was simple: eventually, cars would run on batteries, and he'd be ready with both.

BYD is vertically integrated to a degree that would make Henry Ford jealous. They make their own batteries, their own chips, their own electric motors, their own car bodies, and even their own glass.

This means they control costs at every level of the supply chain. Revenue comes from vehicle sales (passenger EVs and plug-in hybrids), commercial vehicles (electric buses — BYD is the world's largest EV bus manufacturer), battery manufacturing (Blade Battery), energy storage systems, and electronics manufacturing.

The vertical integration gives BYD margins that competitors relying on external suppliers can't match.

BYD Seal, BYD Dolphin, BYD Atto 3, BYD Han, BYD Tang, BYD Seagull (sub-$10K), BYD Blade Battery (LFP), Denza (luxury sub-brand, wholly owned by BYD since Mercedes sold its last 10% in July 2024), Yangwang (ultra-luxury sub-brand), BYD electric buses, BYD energy storage systems.

BYD grew by dominating China first, then expanding outward. In China, they offer EVs and plug-in hybrids at price points that Tesla and others simply cannot match — the BYD Seagull starts under $10,000.

Their strategy internationally is aggressive: building factories in Thailand, Hungary, Brazil, and Indonesia to avoid tariffs and localize production. BYD is also the world's largest electric bus manufacturer — they've sold buses to cities from London to Los Angeles.

The Blade Battery (LFP chemistry, no risk of catching fire) has become a major selling point.

International expansion against established brands is BYD's current challenge. While BYD dominates China (33% EV market share), cracking Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America means competing with BMW, Toyota, and Hyundai on their home turf.

The EU has imposed tariffs on Chinese EVs specifically to slow BYD's advance. Quality perception in Western markets is still a hurdle — "made in China" carries stigma in auto, even though BYD's build quality has improved dramatically.

They also face geopolitical risk: if US-China relations deteriorate further, BYD could be locked out of the world's largest economy entirely.

Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway put in $230 million for a 10% stake in 2008. Berkshire started trimming in August 2022 and had exited the position entirely by March 2025, a 17-year hold that returned around $4 billion.

Various institutional investors hold the stock post-IPO. BYD was largely self-funded through battery manufacturing profits before going public.