What is BYD? Complete brand, model and tech guide for UK car buyers

“We want to be one of the largest mainstream brands in the UK,” says Bono Ge, BYD’s UK country manager. No messing: this Bono wants to be bigger than U2. 

Build Your Dreams is the standard bearer for the Chinese car industry’s international expansion; it entered the UK market just over two years ago with the Atto 3 electric SUV. Now it has a range of six EVs, and the imminent arrival of the Seal 6 DM-i estate will make it two plug-in hybrids.

BYD isn’t quite China’s biggest car maker – SAIC, owner of MG, gets that accolade – but last year sales hit 4.27 million vehicles. It certainly gets the most attention, however, often pitched in a death-or-glory battle with Tesla to be the world’s omnipotent EV maker. Spoiler alert: it’s winning. 

The company isn’t a pure car maker. It started out as a battery supplier for mobile phones and moved into cars only 20 years ago: other interests include buses (it’s a major supplier of London’s red icons), rail, solar power and energy storage.     

Volkswagen Group has 62,000 employees in R&D and sells 4.8m vehicles under the VW brand. “We have 120,000 engineers,” elaborates Bono Ge. “We [apply for] 45 patents every day, we have a lot of technologies.” BYD has invested more in R&D than its net profit in 13 of the last 14 years. It won’t be easy for western car makers to keep pace.

BYD’s innovations include popularising lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, the cheaper alternative to lithium-ion NMC by eliminating rare earths such as cobalt. The chemistry is less energy-dense but engineers solved that with its ‘Blade battery’, which looks like a razor head and crams more strips of cells into the pack. LFP is also less prone to thermal runaway (high-temperature fires) than NMC batteries, should the worst happen.

The firm also pushed ahead with ‘cell-to-body’ design where the battery pack is a structural part – in effect the car’s floor. There’s a promotional video where BYD subjects the Seal saloon to a crash test, unbolts the battery and inserts it in another Seal, which simply starts up and drives away. 

Like Tesla, BYD brings lots of parts and the drivetrain in-house, striving to make everything more efficiently. That way it can cut cost, helping it make profit on extremely cheap EVs: the Dolphin Surf (or Seagull in China) costs less than £10,000 in its home market; the new Seal 6 plug-in is just £16k.    

Prices are much higher in Europe but competitive enough to power BYD’s growth in the UK, now the company’s largest market outside of China. “All customers really appreciate value for money, for a really well equipped product,” says Ge. “We really like the UK market: the people here are open-minded and like [adopting] new technologies.”

The Dolphin Surf supermini and Atto 2 small SUV are the two new electric BYDs to hit the UK in 2025. Total registrations have blasted into orbit – up 576 per cent year-on-year to 35,604 cars – although growth hasn’t always been so dramatic. 

The brand had to overcome an early parts-and-repair scare that hit insurance premiums, and slowing demand for pure electric cars left the initial three-model range marooned in a niche part of the market. BYD doesn’t sell any non-electrified cars, limiting its appeal.

Reinforcements arrived with the Seal U DM-i plug-in hybrid last summer and this one model – the UK’s best-selling plug-in hybrid – accounts for about half of BYD’s UK volume. 

“DM-i does really well,” says Ge, “and we want [prospects] to  understand it better; the Seal U is still a new thing. It’s a stepping stone to an electric vehicle for a lot of people concerned 

about range and so on; why not just try the DM-i technology, right? It’s a similar price to an ICE car, but its economy makes it more environmentally friendly and it’s quieter, with EV driveability.” 

The UK retail network has now passed 100 stores, and is expected to hit 130 by the end of 2025. “More products, more market coverage, and we are also growing our network. We also strongly invest in marketing, to bring up brand awareness and generate a lot of [interest] for dealers.”

Low-margin fleet deals support the brand’s growth across the UK and Europe, reckons autos analyst Matthias Schmidt. “This gains momentum, but going forward that model is unsustainable. 

In Germany, the volume share going to private customers is often in single digits,” he tells us. In the UK, BYD says its fleet:retail split is 40:55 (with the other 5 per cent being demo cars). And it has deep pockets and is prepared to play the long game. And the next salvo will be opening two European factories. 

Pilot production at the Hungary plant – which is set to build the Atto 3 SUV and Dolphin hatchback – is imminent. And BYD is reported to be fast-tracking its Turkish facility, too. Combined, the two plants should yield more than 300,000 units of capacity when they’re up to full steam – and help BYD circumvent its 27 per cent import tariff. BYD wants to reshape the western European car market. Its growth suggests it’s going to succeed.

Chinese car brands ranked by UK impact

Below is our Chinese power list, with all 17 brands ranked on current and potential UK market impact. Click the links to explore each manufacturer in detail...

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