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Unlike Elon Musk<\/span> with his list of broken promises<\/a>, the stats don’t lie. Tesla has lost the title of the world’s largest maker of EVs<\/a> to Chinese automaker BYD<\/a>. The signs have been there for a while, with BYD besting Tesla sales in Europe a number of times<\/a> during 2025. Now it’s official on a global basis.<\/p>\n Despite being blocked from entering the US market<\/a>, BYD’s seemingly unstoppable rise continues as its EV sales rose last year by 28 percent to 2.25 million. In contrast, Tesla announced today it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025<\/a>\u2014its second annual decline in a row, and a 16 percent year-over-year decline for the fourth quarter. This is not merely the China brand edging ahead of Tesla in the electric vehicle race; it’s a marked shift.<\/p>\n Last week, BYD stated that in 2025 it sold 4.6 million \u201cnew energy vehicles\u201d (which includes both full EVs and plugin hybrids<\/a>) globally, with more than a million of these being exported cars. Its passenger vehicle exports specifically were up more than 145 percent year-on-year.<\/p>\n The news comes after a frankly disastrous year for Tesla that saw the high-selling Model Y, crucial for both Elon Musk and his car company, get a half-hearted refresh that bombed<\/a>, failing to reverse sales woes. It was also a year that disclosed just how few people bought<\/a> the much-berated<\/a> Cybertruck; in March, yet another recall<\/a> revealed the company had apparently sold less than 50,000 electric pickups since customer deliveries began 14 months previously. Musk had told investors Tesla would sell 250,000 Cybertrucks per year.<\/p>\n With Tesla sales down in the US<\/a>, and in free fall in Europe<\/a>, Elon Musk turned to US President Donald Trump<\/a> for help. Trump obliged by morphing the White House South Lawn into a makeshift Tesla<\/a> showroom, claiming he would himself purchase a racy Model S Plaid<\/a>. But by June it was reported Trump might be selling the car<\/a> after publicly falling out with Musk<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just last month, EV news site Electrek reported that Musk\u2019s SpaceX<\/a> had bought tens of millions of dollars worth of Cybertrucks<\/a> that supposedly Tesla can\u2019t sell. (You can see the pickups all lined up at SpaceX in this video<\/a>.) If true, that move would significantly bolster Tesla\u2019s financial performance in 2025’s fourth quarter, providing at least some respite for the automaker after the US ended its EV tax credits<\/a> at the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n Musk has recently claimed that a shift away from EVs will secure the company’s future\u2014along with a $1 trillion pay package<\/a> for him. Tesla is banking on robotaxis and the production of legions of Optimus robots to makeup the gap. Trouble is, despite Musk’s promise to deliver 1 million humanoid robots over the next decade, (comedy) footage<\/a> is still emerging of the machines being remotely operated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n