Tesla Loses Big to BYD in Europe

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Aug 28, 9:45AM EDT

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Chinese EV giant BYD outsold Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) in the European Union in July.
Tesla’s stock has declined by 13% this year.

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Tesla Loses Big to BYD in Europe — © Robert Way / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) held the electric vehicle (EV) crown for a decade worldwide. In the past year, China’s EV giant BYD passed it in global sales. Being the number one EV maker in the world’s largest EV market helped BYD’s success. And Elon Musk’s political issues, which have damaged Tesla’s brand and sales, also helped. BYD has begun to expand into other markets, including Asia and parts of Europe.

BYD beating out Tesla as the top EV company in July highlights its success in the EU. The race was not even close. Tesla’s sales fell 40% year over year to 8,837, while BYD’s sales rose 225% to 13,503. The numbers are based on car registrations provided by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. It also reported, “The battery-electric car market share for July 2025 YTD stood at 15.6%, still far from where it needs to be at this point in the transition.”

Much of Tesla’s sales decline is likely due to Musk’s public endorsements of certain candidates and parties during elections in some European nations.

Tesla’s EU sales have declined throughout the year. The July numbers indicate that this decline has not halted. Tesla has also experienced sales declines in its two primary markets: China and the United States.

Tesla’s stock has declined by 13% this year, while the S&P 500 is up 10%.

Musk has continued to pitch Tesla as a robotics and artificial intelligence company. Tesla is testing fully self-driving cars in the U.S., with the goal of leading the entire industry in this technology. Its current robotics product is the Optimus humanoid. Whether it can succeed as a mass market product remains to be seen.

Tesla has a market capitalization of $1.13 trillion, making it the 10th most valuable company in the world. Musk continues to convince investors that cars are not the only thing that will drive the company forward.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.