BYD's unprecedented scale laid bare: How the BYD Atto 3, Seal and Shark 6 are just the beginning as the company pours resources into chasing down Toyota, Tesla and all other auto giants

BYD is the new Goliath in the car industry.

The Chinese giant sold more than 4.2 million cars last year according to reports from the BBC, and 1.76m of those were fully electric cars.

That EV number put it just a whisker behind Tesla at 1.79m for the second best selling electric car maker in the world.

Figures published by CarNewsChina showed BYD selling more than half a million vehicles in December alone, that’s close to half of the amount of vehicles Australians bought in the whole of 2024.

It is easy to believe that this time next year BYD will be the largest seller of EVs in the world.

Despite those massive numbers, Toyota and the sprawling Volkswagen Group remain the world's largest auto producers, but the Chinese giant is catching up fast.

Another figure has come to light that shows just how powerful and resource heavy BYD is, and it dwarfs all other carmakers according to reports.

Late in 2024, BYD’s founder and Chairman, Wang Chuanfu, said BYD now has 110,000 engineers, according to online reports.

BYD Seal (image: Tom White)

This makes it one of, if not the, largest R&D departments in the car industry.

This is on top of about one million employees and 11 major research institutions. That’s a lot of people working on developing and building new cars and batteries.

BYD already has a stranglehold on the battery industry as one of the world’s biggest suppliers of car batteries. Making its own batteries also gives it a price advantage over rivals that need to buy them externally.

All those research staff are fast tracking new and improved models with a vast range of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles in the pipeline.

The company also rolls out extensive updates far quicker than conventional car brands who generally release a new generation of a vehicle every eight years with a heavy update every four.

So expect an onslaught of new BYD vehicles on roads soon.

In Australia, BYD sales grew by about 65 per cent in 2024. This was off the back of two new models, the Seal electric sedan and the Sealion 6 plug-in hybrid SUV.

The company has just launched the Shark 6 plug-in hybrid ute in Australia with the first deliveries to commence shortly.

It has also announced the Sealion 7, a mid-size full electric SUV that will compete directly with the Tesla Model Y.

It will be priced similar to the Model Y with a sub-$60,000 price tag.

It also just announced more affordable versions of the Dolphin electric hatchback and Atto 3 compact SUV.

The new base Dolphin is the first EV to start at below $30,000 (before on-road costs).

Spy photographers have snapped one of BYD’s vehicles from its off-road focus Fang Cheng Bao sub brand in Australia.

The mid-size Bao 5 is a mini plug-in hybrid rival to the vaunted Toyota Prado and Ford Everest.

It is expected to ditch the fang Cheng bao name for Australia and be called the Denza B5.

BYD is expected to roll out a number of vehicles under its Denza brand, which has a more luxury focus overseas.