China’s Tesla BYD saw its sales crash by 41.1% last month, while January and February’s combined sales fell about 36% from the same period last year.
That drop stood out even more because several other Chinese EV brands did better over the same stretch.
Leapmotor sold 60,126 vehicles in January and February, up 19% year on year. Xiaomi sold more than 59,000 units, up 48%. Nio posted a 77% jump in combined sales, while Geely’s Zeekr rose about 84%, based on CNBC calculations. Not every rival gained.
Xpeng posted the steepest decline, with 35,267 combined deliveries, down roughly 42% from a year earlier. Li Auto also slipped, with deliveries down nearly 4% to 54,089.
Why are rivals squeezing BYD?
BYD is still the world’s largest electric vehicle maker, but its lead inside China got thinner in the first two months of the year.
Buyers had more options, and more of those options looked good enough to pull sales away from BYD. That is what the numbers showed. This was not just about a holiday slowdown. It was also about tougher competition on the ground.
Chinese carmakers have been trying to cut into BYD’s lead by loading their vehicles with more value while keeping prices aggressive. In China, that kind of fight is called involution.
One of the clearest examples came from Xiaomi, whose new YU7 SUV was China’s best-selling passenger vehicle in January. The model sold more than twice as many units as Tesla’s Model Y.
That mattered because the Model Y had been the top-selling model in the previous month. So the lead changed hands fast, and Xiaomi ended up with one of the strongest sales gains in the market.
Even with some brands selling more cars, the wider EV market in China still faced slower demand. One reason was tax policy. Buyers of new energy vehicles now face a 5% purchase tax after earlier being exempt from the full 10% tax.
Analysts said that smaller incentives could weigh on demand because buyers expect the extra cost to be passed on to them.
BYD pushes its new Song Ultra EV amid revenue struggles
As competition at home got harder, BYD leaned more on foreign markets. In February, the company’s exports were higher than its domestic sales for the first time.
At the same time, BYD kept adding new products. On March 5, the company opened presales in China for the BYD Song Ultra EV, a mid-size electric crossover.
The starting price was 155,000 yuan, or about $22,470. The model comes with a 270-kW electric motor, which equals 362 horsepower, and it offers a driving range of up to 710 kilometers.
The Song Ultra EV first appeared in January 2026 during the homologation process when it applied for a sales license in China. The vehicle follows BYD’s usual design language. Its dimensions are 4,850 mm in length, 1,910 mm in width, and 1,670 mm in height. The wheelbase is 2,840 mm.
The crossover uses BYD’s second-generation Blade battery, and the company alleges that the battery gives 5% higher energy density. The car can charge 70% in five minutes, and also comes with a DiSus-C chassis that uses a continuous damping system.
Buyers can add the DiPilot 300 assisted driving system, also called God’s Eye B, and they can also choose an optional LiDAR sensor.
