SHANGHAI — The world’s auto industry is getting a shake-up from Chinese automakers that are quickly expanding across the globe, offering relatively affordable electric vehicles designed to wow car buyers with sleek designs and the latest high-tech interiors.
Companies like BYD, Great Wall, Geely and Chery Automobile are reaching outward as they build the scale they need to survive cut-throat competition in their home market.
These generally are not state-run giants like SAIC, BAIC and Guangzhou Automotive. The founder of Geely started out making refrigerators.
BYD first built up its expertise in battery technology, now its biggest advantage as the world’s largest-selling EV maker. Some others are technology companies allied with automakers to offer autonomous driving.
Here are some of the key players:
Great Wall Motors, with the Haval, Wey, Ora, Poer and Tank brands, is banking on overseas sales to keep growing after seeing its sales inside China fall by nearly 15% last year, even as the company’s net profit jumped more than 80%. The company has factories in Russia, Thailand and Brazil, where it is challenging Toyota’s popular Hilux pickup truck with its GWM Poer, a hybrid pickup of its own. Another mainstay is the Haval H6, a hybrid sports SUV.
Great Wall has smoothed its transition to overseas production by buying factories of other automakers. In Thailand, it took over a factory formerly operated by General Motors Corp. In Brazil, it purchased a former Mercedes-Benz plant.
“It is essential for volume to be big, otherwise the cost of production is too high,” Great Wall’s chairman, Wei Jianjun, said in a media huddle at the show. Wei, who also goes by the name Jack Wey, was born in Beijing but moved to nearby Hebei, home of the Great Wall. He led the company’s transition from vehicle modification to automaking, becoming China’s biggest maker of pickup trucks and a leading SUV maker. The company has a joint venture for EVs with BMW.
State-owned Chery Automobile says it was the first Chinese automaker to export overseas. It has sold more than 15 million of its Chery, Exeed, Omoda and Jetour models overseas, mostly in the developing world and emerging markets, including Turkey and Ukraine. Chery reported selling 2.6 million vehicles overseas last year and is aiming for 3 million in 2025. It’s quickly expanding overseas production, setting up factories in Russia and Spain. It is expanding rapidly in Latin America.
Chery’s tie-up with EV-maker Visionary Vehicles aimed to sell in North America but has not yet achieved that goal. The company has a 50-50 joint venture with Jaguar Land Rover, which is a subsidiary of Tata Motors of India that makes Jaguars and Land Rovers in China. It also collaborates with Huawei Technologies and e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Chery still sells far more fuel-engine cars than EVs. Its battery electric vehicle company, Chery New Energy, makes minivehicles like the eQ1, or Small Ant, and the QQ Ice Cream. Its mainstays are the Tiggo lineup of SUVs and its Arrizo sedans.
BYD made more electric vehicles last year than Tesla, selling 3.52 million EVs in China, up 28% from a year earlier. Its strength in plug-in hybrids has helped as Chinese increasingly opt for the fallback of a fuel engine.
The company, based in southern China’s Shenzhen, recently announced an ultra-fast EV charging system it says can provide a full charge for its latest EVs within five to eight minutes, about as long as a fill-up. It plans to build more than 4,000 of the new charging stations across China.
The Chinese company started out making batteries and has been refining its battery and energy storage technology while building an auto empire that is expanding outside China.
While BYD’s fanciest, latest premium models are expected to sell for up to about $40,000, it also makes much less expensive EVs including the Seagull, which sells for around $12,000 in China.
BYD barely nudged ahead of Tesla in production of battery-powered EVs in 2024, making 1,777,965 compared with Tesla’s 1,773,443.
Geely Auto is perhaps the most famous Chinese automaker that many people have never heard of. The privately held company was founded as a refrigerator-maker by businessman Li Shufu in 1997 in eastern China’s Taizhou, which early on became a hub of private industry.
Li began making strategic overseas acquisitions early on, buying Sweden’s Volvo Car Co. from Ford Motor in 2010. Geely’s purchase of a 49.9% stake in Malaysia’s Proton gave it a 51% stake in luxury sports car brand Lotus. It formed a 50-50 joint venture to make Smart city cars with Germany’s Daimler AG. It also works with Renault SA of France on powertrains and owns a stake in Aston Martin Lagonda.
In March, it launched sales of its Geely EX5 SUVs in Australia and New Zealand, adding to its global reach.
Geely also owns New York Stock Exchange-listed Zeekr Intelligent Technology Holding, which makes a premium EV brand. Geely and Volvo own Swedish automaker Polestar, which has struggled in the U.S. market.
China’s second-best selling EV brand is Wuling, a joint venture of Shanghai’s SAIC Motor, General Motors and Guangxi Auto. It sold more than 673,000 EVs in China and has a market share of only 6% compared with BYD’s nearly one-third share. Tesla came in third at 659,000 cars sold.
Apart from its Baojun sedans and vans, Wuling mainly makes engines, commercial vehicles and special purpose vehicles like mini-EVs and golf carts.
Other major Chinese brands of EVs include Nio, Xpeng, Li Auto and Leap Motor. State-run giants like Dongfeng Motor Group, which has an alliance with Nissan Motor Corp., and Changan Automobile, a partner with Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp. and with Ford Motor Co., are also quickly expanding EV sales.
But the industry is fast-changing and competition in the home market is tough. That’s a key reason why the biggest automakers have focused attention on expanding into global markets.
