BYD's Li Ke Says: To Surpass Toyota and Volkswagen Within Five Years and Become the World's No. 1 Car Manufacturer

BYD Vice President Li Ke clarified the company's global strategic goals for the next phase at a summit in Singapore.

The gist is:

Plan to become the world's largest car manufacturer within the next five years, surpassing Toyota Motor and Volkswagen Group; BYD will adhere to the going global strategy and continuously expand into European, Central American, South American, Asian, and Oceania markets. BYD leads in multiple fields such as energy storage, photovoltaics, and batteries; battery technology is its core competitiveness, not just having advantages in the automotive field. BYD will not enter the US market temporarily, Li Ke stated that BYD hopes for a business environment with certainty and clear prospects; only then can BYD grasp the initiative for investment.

The above are Li Ke's views. Li Ke is not only the Vice President of BYD but also the wife of BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu; the weight of her expressed views is evident.

Currently, Toyota Motor is the number one car manufacturer in global sales, and the second is Volkswagen Group.

The ranking of the top ten global car manufacturers by sales for the first half of 2026 is as follows:

1. Japan Toyota Motor, 5,390,484 units
2. Germany Volkswagen Group, 4,125,700 units
3. Hyundai Motor Group (South Korea) (including Kia and other sub-brands), 3,579,365 units
4. Stellantis Group (Stellantis · Established by the merger of French car manufacturer Peugeot Group and Italian car manufacturer Fiat Chrysler), 2,958,000 units
5. US General Motors, 2,721,000 units
6. China BYD Motor, 1,808,511 units
7. Japan Suzuki Motor, 1,799,736 units
8. Japan Nissan (Nissan) Motor, 1,506,052 units
9. China Geely Motor, 1,422,958 units
10. China Chery Motor, 1,357,533 units

There are three Chinese car companies among the top ten, and BYD is indeed one of them.

However, looking at the sales data for the first half of the year alone, there is still a big gap between BYD and Volkswagen Group (Germany) in second place; the latter's sales are 2.28 times that of BYD for the same period; meanwhile, Toyota Motor (Japan), ranked first, sold 2.98 times the volume of BYD for the same period, the gap is obvious.

Moreover, the market share of joint venture car brands in China has declined significantly at this stage. The combined market share of the four major German brands (Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz) has fallen to below 20%, and the Japanese brands are slightly lower. The data shows that the market share of Toyota Motor and Volkswagen Group in major global markets is not to be underestimated. Furthermore, the domestic market has entered a stock stage. Therefore, whether it is BYD, Volkswagen, or Toyota Motor, the main battlefield for their next phase will be the expansion of overseas markets.

For Toyota Motor and Volkswagen Motor, which already occupy a large share of the overseas market, the natural task for the next phase is to fight a battle to protect market share.

Relying on the first-mover advantage in new energy vehicles and the policy advantage of the electrification of China's domestic automotive industry, BYD has successfully become the car company with the highest sales volume in China currently. However, overseas market environments inevitably have significant differences, and the energy structures of different countries and regions also vary significantly. As for the technological moat of electric vehicles, it is objectively not wide enough. Currently, the main advantage of China's new energy vehicles is still the advantage of a complete industrial scale and system.

As Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motor stated: Automobile electrification is a China strategy, not a strategy of other countries. Therefore, it is impossible to predict now whether BYD can become the world's number one car company within five years as Li Ke predicted. We can only wait and see.