EVs
Mission Critical: How BYD made China a leader in EVs
A Shenzhen-based car manufacturer that has seemingly popped up overnight has now beaten Tesla in Europe, posted US$115 billion (A$176.7 billion) in annual revenue and shipped 4.27 million vehicles in 2024, capturing 18% of the worldwide EV sector. Here we look at how Chinese carmaker BYD catapulted itself from a battery manufacturer to the world's largest EV manufacturer; and how it's spearheading a plethora of Chinese automakers that are now simultaneously producing vehicles cheaper, higher in quality and more innovative than legacy brands. Azzet’s Mission Critical is a weekly column that lays out the ebbs and flows around critical minerals supply chains - from pricing, production, refinement and mergers & acquisitions, to manufacturing and consumer products. April 2025 caught some analysts by surprise as BYD's EU registrations jumped 359% year-over-year, while Tesla's volumes dropped 49%. Yet with a commanding six of the world's top ten EV sellers, China now controls 70% of global EV production, and in developing nations such as Brazil and Thailand, they've locked up 85% of all EV deliveries. Meanwhile, Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are watching their market foothold evaporate in China, where German OEMs had
EV safety and Model Y door handles under the microscope
Electric vehicle safety has been put to the test in a new range of safety trials by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The results from IIHS, published earlier this month, showed that the seven electric vehicles tested for safety were found to provide both high-quality protection for the driver and decent protection for rear passengers, with some differentials appearing across the vehicles for the latter. The 2025 BMW i4, Chevrolet Blazer EV, Ford F-150 Lightning, Nissan Ariya, Tesla Cybertruck, Tesla Model 3 and Volkswagen ID.Buzz were the vehicles selected for the series of tests. The IIHS, an independent non-profit organisation, found that the i4, Blazer EV, Cybertruck and ID.Buzz all earned a top rating of “good” when it came to rear passenger protection, while the Ford F-150 Lightning and Nissan Ariya were the worst performing and scored a rating of “poor”. This comes shortly after concerns were raised by both China and the United States about the safety of retractable Tesla door handles. The handles could be banned in China as soon as 2027, with a draft of the new national standard for car door handle safety published this week, which could see Tesla having to redesign all of its door release systems.