Where Data Tells the Story
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For a while now, Tesla and BYD have been constantly trading the number one spot for the most global electric vehicle (EV) sales.
Based on the ranking above, BYD leads global EV sales at 1,249,405 units in the first five months of 2026.
That figure is more than double Tesla’s 595,647. The data comes from CleanTechnica.
More interestingly, BYD is struggling to maintain its domestic sales. But overseas sales are thriving.
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BYD’s domestic China sales fell 22% year-on-year in Q2 2026 as government subsidies that had underpinned China’s EV market for years began to fade, and as a broader property market slump compressed consumer purchasing power.
Car sales in China are forecast to fall 11% this year.
What absorbed some of that domestic pressure was overseas expansion.
BYD’s June overseas sales jumped 94.7% year-on-year to 175,349 vehicles.
First-half overseas sales reached 792,256 units, up 70.7%, making it one of the company’s few genuine growth engines at a time when the home market is contracting.
Tesla (595,647) remains the most significant non-Chinese EV manufacturer by a substantial margin over Volkswagen (215,489), BMW (192,650) and Toyota (176,749).
On a pure battery-electric vehicle basis (stripping out plug-in hybrids, which account for a meaningful portion of BYD’s aggregate total), BYD’s Q2 BEV figure was 557,090, against analyst consensus for Tesla of approximately 406,000.
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