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Author ｜ Zhang Rui
Editor ｜ Zhi Hao
After obtaining filing approval from the CSRC, Momenta's prospectus is here.
Auto News reported on June 23, today, MOMENTA GLOBAL LIMITED (hereinafter referred to as Momenta) submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
▲Momenta Prospectus
According to data in the prospectus, as of February 28, 2026, Momenta has cumulatively secured 180 vehicle model designations, with the installed base of production-ready vehicle solutions exceeding 733,000 units.
As of February 28, 2026, Momenta has established cooperative relationships with 24 global OEMs, including nine among the global top ten OEMs such as Toyota, General Motors, Hyundai-Kia, Volkswagen, and Honda, as well as China's top ten OEMs including SAIC, BYD, GAC, Chery, FAW, Geely, Great Wall, and Dongfeng.
Regarding financial data, in 2025, Momenta's revenue was RMB 2.413 billion, a year-on-year increase of 82.1% compared to 2024, although it still recorded a loss of RMB 3.458 billion, an expansion from 2024.
▲Momenta Major Financial Information for the Last Three Years
Momenta is a Chinese autonomous driving company founded in 2016, adopting a "Two Legs" strategy, based on a data-driven "Flywheel", with a product strategy combining Mass Production with Scalable Robo.
▲Momenta's Booth at the Beijing Auto Show
Momenta mentioned in the listing application that the proceeds from this fundraising are expected to be used to strengthen core infrastructure, expand R&D capabilities, promote R&D investment in next-generation high-level intelligent driving solutions, and are also used for investment in accelerating the commercialization and scaled development of autonomous ride-hailing service solutions.
▲Some Uses of Momenta Funds Raised
I. Cumulative Revenue of RMB 4.481 Billion Over Three Years, 2025 Gross Margin 71.6%Regarding performance, according to Momenta's listing application documents, Momenta's revenue in 2023 and 2024 was RMB 743 million and RMB 1.325 billion respectively.
▲Momenta Financial Data Summary in Recent Years
In 2025, Momenta's revenue was RMB 2.413 billion, a year-on-year increase of 82.1% compared to 2024. Momenta stated this was mainly due to increased licensing fees and increased technical development service revenue, benefiting from rising customer demand. Momenta's cumulative revenue over three years was approximately RMB 4.481 billion.
▲Momenta Revenue Changes in Recent Years
However, at present, Momenta is still in a loss-making state. Momenta's net losses in 2023, 2024, and 2025 were RMB 2.57 billion, RMB 3.206 billion, and RMB 3.458 billion respectively, with a cumulative net loss over three years of approximately RMB 9.234 billion.
▲Momenta Loss Changes in Recent Years
In 2023, 2024, and 2025, Momenta's gross margin increased significantly, with three-year gross margins of 17.5%, 49.0%, and 71.6% respectively.
▲Momenta Gross Margin in Recent Years
Regarding R&D investment, in 2023 and 2024, Momenta's R&D expenditure was RMB 1.281 billion and RMB 1.508 billion respectively.
▲Momenta R&D Investment in Recent Years
In 2025, Momenta's R&D expenditure was RMB 1.869 billion, a 23.9% year-on-year increase compared to 2024, accounting for 77.5% of total revenue. Momenta stated this was mainly driven by increased R&D activities, including rising infrastructure costs, increased training platform expenses and cloud service fees, Momenta's test fleet operating costs, and increased employee compensation and benefits.
Regarding financing history, as of November 28, 2025, Momenta has completed a Series C-13 financing round, with a post-money valuation of USD 6.185 billion (approximately RMB 41.918 billion).
▲Momenta Financing Information
II. Focused on Developing and Commercializing Intelligent Driving Technology, Cumulatively Awarded 180 Vehicle Model OrdersSpecifically looking at the business, Momenta is an autonomous driving company focused on developing and commercializing intelligent driving technology to improve safety and efficiency in the mobility and logistics sectors, specifically including achieving this through production-ready vehicle solutions and scalable autonomous mobility applications.
According to data, whether calculated by sales volume of vehicles equipped with Momenta Urban NOA solutions in the past twelve months ended February 28, 2026, or by the cumulative number of production-ready vehicle models equipped with Momenta Urban NOA solutions as of February 28, 2026, Momenta ranks first among all independent intelligent driving solution providers globally.
As of December 31, 2025, Momenta had cumulatively secured 170 vehicle model designations, including 68 models that have entered formal mass production. At the same time, the installed base of Momenta's intelligent driving solutions on production vehicles exceeded 680,000 units, with cooperative relationships established with 24 global OEMs, including cooperation with China's top ten OEMs such as SAIC, GAC, Chery, FAW, Geely, Great Wall, and Dongfeng.
▲Cumulative Momenta Designated Vehicle Models
In addition, according to data, for the past 12 months ended February 28, 2026, calculated by city NOA sales, Momenta ranked first among global independent city NOA solution providers, with a market share of 64.5%.
▲Ranking of Global Independent Urban NOA Solution Providers
As of February 28, 2026, Momenta has further established a cooperative relationship with Ford, increasing the number of global top ten OEMs with whom Momenta has established cooperative relationships to nine. These include Toyota, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, BMW Group China, Hyundai-Kia, Volkswagen, BYD, and Honda among the global top ten OEMs listed by Fortune Magazine in July 2025.
In addition, as of February 28, 2026, Momenta has cumulatively secured 180 vehicle model designations, an increase from the 170 models as of December 31, 2025. As of the same day, the installed base of Momenta production-ready vehicle solutions exceeded 733,000 units.
In 2023, 2024, and 2025, Momenta's total revenue from its top five customers was RMB 644.3 million, RMB 1.0373 billion, and RMB 1.5082 billion respectively, accounting for 86.7%, 78.3%, and 62.6% of Momenta's revenue respectively. Revenue generated from the largest customer in each year during the track record period was RMB 265.5 million, RMB 255.6 million, and RMB 522.2 million respectively, accounting for 35.7%, 19.3%, and 21.6% of Momenta's revenue respectively.
▲Momenta Major Customers
Specifically regarding products, Momenta provides two solutions: solutions deployed on production vehicles and developing scalable unmanned mobility and logistics businesses, expected to expand to autonomous freight vehicles and autonomous trucking services.
Although production-ready vehicle solutions and autonomous ride-hailing service solutions operate independently, Momenta remains committed to promoting interaction between the two to drive Momenta's "One Flywheel, Two Legs" strategy, which forms a flywheel accelerating technology evolution, supporting Momenta in ultimately achieving scalable fully autonomous driving.
▲Momenta's 'One Flywheel, Two Legs' Strategy
Regarding production-ready vehicle solutions, as a Tier-1 Software Supplier, Momenta provides high-level intelligent driving software solutions that are stable during actual use and compatible with different OEM platforms.
Momenta's software design can be integrated with OEM platforms, ensuring OEMs have full control over system performance, deployment rhythm, and future upgrades while accelerating product launch and improving system overall flexibility.
Through integration with OEM platforms, Momenta customizes solutions for specific vehicle architectures while maintaining high reliability and supporting continuous iterative upgrades. Momenta's main line platform across vehicle platforms also enables Momenta to participate in overseas projects more efficiently, thereby serving OEMs that span multiple regions and vehicle platforms.
Meanwhile, Momenta is working closely with global top OEMs to promote L3-level project implementation, moving towards a new stage of autonomous driving together.
The revenue model for Momenta's production-ready vehicle solutions consists of two parts: 1. Pre-production technical development service fees, where Momenta adapts, validates, and integrates solutions into OEM vehicle models facing mass production; 2. Post-production licensing fees based on sales volume, which are charged once per vehicle integrating the high-level intelligent driving solution.
▲Momenta Production-Ready Vehicle Solution Revenue Model
Regarding autonomous ride-hailing service solutions, currently Momenta focuses on autonomous ride-hailing services. As technology and business environments evolve, Momenta plans to further expand autonomous freight vehicles and autonomous trucking services.
As of the last practicable date, Momenta has obtained commercial operation approval in Suzhou and Shanghai, China, demonstration application license and test license in Wuxi, China, and test license in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
According to data, Momenta cooperates with Mercedes-Benz and UAE national taxi company Lumo to launch the world's first high-end autonomous ride-hailing service.
In addition, Momenta reached a strategic cooperation with Roam in May 2025 to deploy autonomous ride-hailing vehicles based on front-production mass production vehicle platforms, planning to launch commercial operations in Shanghai in early 2026.
At the same time, Momenta has established cooperation frameworks with overseas leading mobility platforms such as Uber and Grab, and plans to launch overseas commercial autonomous ride-hailing services in Abu Dhabi, UAE and Munich, Germany in 2026, and is expected to expand to more cities in regions such as the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia (such as Dubai, Singapore, and selected cities in Germany).
Currently, Momenta has completed system integration with Uber and is testing in Munich. Momenta is also communicating with Grab regarding regulatory approvals and early testing arrangements, while conducting necessary road tests in Abu Dhabi.
According to Momenta's autonomous ride-hailing cooperation model, mobility platforms are usually responsible for user acquisition, order dispatch, customer interface, and fleet operations through their mobility applications. Vehicles are mainly provided through the cooperation between Momenta and vehicle partners (usually OEMs), while Momenta focuses on delivering autonomous driving systems.
III. Committed to Building "Android System" in Autonomous Driving Field, Models Deployed in Multiple Production-Ready ModelsMomenta's autonomous driving platform, unlike closed, vertically integrated systems, is committed to building a highly open, modular, and highly generalized intelligent driving ecosystem platform, which Momenta calls the "Android System" in the autonomous driving field.
▲Momenta Autonomous Driving Platform
Momenta Autonomous Driving Platform's modularity and generalization capabilities support seamless adaptation between different vehicle models and autonomous ride-hailing operations, featuring three core characteristics:
1. Openness: Momenta adheres to an open platform strategy, collaborating closely with OEMs and other mobility platforms to flexibly respond to their personalized needs at different development stages and market strategies. Momenta's solutions can adapt to diverse hardware configurations, vehicle platforms, price ranges, and functional requirements.
2. Modularity: Momenta developed a unified platform architecture with standardized interfaces, ensuring consistency of user experience and system compatibility under different vehicle models and hardware configurations, while supporting rapid large-scale deployment.
3. Generalizability: Momenta adopts a "mapless" solution, which does not rely on pre-collected high-definition maps, yet achieves strong generalization capabilities of "can drive wherever there is a road, can drive globally". This provides powerful geographical adaptability, making large-scale deployment possible.
Regarding data-driven algorithms, Momenta's data-driven algorithm model has rapidly iterated to the 6th generation. The R6 model learns in a simulation environment covering diverse driving trajectories. For every trajectory, the model is evaluated based on multiple reward mechanisms covering safety, comfort, and efficiency, achieving continuous optimization of decision-making capabilities by reinforcing optimal behavior and penalizing poor behavior.
The key advantage of the R6 model lies in simultaneously utilizing high-quality and poor driving data: high-quality behavior is reinforced through positive rewards, while poor behavior is explicitly penalized, thereby fully releasing the value of data generated by production-ready vehicles after formal mass production — every kilometer driven can be converted into potential training input. According to Momenta's internal testing data, compared to the previous generation, the R6 model can achieve performance improvements of up to about eight times in some safety-critical scenarios.
With the support of reinforcement learning, the R6 model has achieved significant improvements in safety, compliance with traffic rules, and more intelligent driving decisions. To date, the R6 model has been deployed in multiple production-ready models including Buick Zhijing L7 under SAIC-GM and Chery Fengyun T11. In the future, Momenta plans to expand it to more new models.
IV. 7 Automotive Companies Hold Shares, Founder Has Over 15 Years of Experience in Tech IndustryIn terms of equity structure, as of the last practicable date, according to listing rules, Cao Xudong, Xia Yan, Sun Gang, Sun Huan, Jia Sibuo, Li Jun, Zhu Wangjiang, Wang Jinwei, Bigsail Holdings, Lvdou, Shengse, Pine Sky, Creative Circuit Limited, Yijia VC Limited, Tide Bay Limited, and Tycoon Insight Limited constitute a group of controlling shareholders for Momenta.
▲Momenta Equity Structure
Meanwhile, in the list of Momenta's major shareholders, we can see General Motors holds 9.37% and Mercedes-Benz Group holds 6.39%. In addition, it is noteworthy that among Momenta's shareholders, there are a total of 7 automotive companies: SAIC, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, BYD, Hyundai, and Chery.
▲Momenta Major Shareholders List
Among them, Cao Xudong is Momenta's founder, Board Chairman, Executive Director, and Chief Executive Officer. In addition, Cao Xudong is currently a director and/or senior management member of several Momenta subsidiaries, mainly responsible for supervising Momenta's overall management, organizational development, and strategic project development.
▲Cao Xudong
Cao Xudong obtained a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Engineering Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering from Tsinghua University located in Beijing in July 2008, and has over 15 years of experience in the tech industry.
Before founding Momenta, Cao Xudong served as a researcher at Microsoft Research Asia from November 2010 to October 2015, mainly responsible for R&D in areas such as search engines, machine learning cloud services, and cloud storage systems. From November 2015 to August 2016, Cao Xudong served as Executive R&D Director of SenseTime Group Limited, mainly responsible for leading and supervising the R&D of multiple technical innovations including Internet-based facial recognition technology.
Conclusion: Momenta is About to List on HK Stock ExchangeMomenta stated that for Momenta, listing in Hong Kong is not just for fundraising, but also to prove that technology can scale to make money, be mass installed in vehicles, and go global.
According to the prospectus, from 2023 to 2025, Momenta's operating income grew from 743 million yuan to 2.413 billion yuan, tripling over three years with a CAGR of over 80%, cash reserves exceeding RMB 10 billion, leaving space for Robo business (such as autonomous Robotaxi, unmanned Robovan, and autonomous Robotruck, etc.) and going overseas.
If Momenta can successfully list in Hong Kong this time, it is expected to obtain more capital support and increase investment in continuous R&D of core technologies.
Author: kimsu
"There is always a way when a car reaches the mountain; wherever there is a road, there are Toyota vehicles." For a long time, Toyota's "Toyota emblem" symbolized "fuel efficiency, durability, and high resale value," a golden reputation in the auto industry that was hard to shake.
However, entering 2026, this golden reputation has cracked. According to Nikkei, Toyota's sales in China in May were 102,300 units, a 32% year-on-year decline, marking the fourth consecutive month of year-on-year decline. The myth of paying a premium and waiting six months to collect the car has now faded under the surging tide of electrification.
"Legend" Fades, Toyota Faces Dilemma
Toyota's situation has become increasingly severe. In 2025, it could still defend the honor of the Japanese camp with sales of 1.78 million units in China, a slight increase of 0.23% year-on-year, becoming the only Japanese brand with positive growth in China. But entering 2026, the decline is obvious.
At a time when the NEV penetration rate has exceeded 60%, Toyota's once proud fuel vehicle lineup inevitably became the core "bleeding point." Taking the "National Icon" Corolla as an example, Autohome data shows that this model, which once dominated the A-class family car market for years, has seen monthly sales drop from a peak of nearly 40,000 units to around 3,000 units, far from even a fraction of its peak; the originator of urban SUVs, RAV4, saw average monthly sales exceeding 10,000 units after entering 2026, doing quite well, but the fact that the entry-level model's dealer price dropped to 140,000 yuan proves that this "God Car" that once couldn't be grabbed even with a 20,000 yuan premium has now been forced to the point of "trading price for volume".
Camry, which once attracted countless family users with its hybrid system, also couldn't escape. Monthly sales over 10,000 units still seemed common, but the model with an official starting price of 171,800 yuan now has a dealer price of under 140,000 yuan. It can be said that Toyota is currently maintaining its own dignity by "trading price for volume".
Toyota's dilemma in China is inseparable from its misjudgment of the electrification wave. This is a common issue among Japanese brands. When Chinese car manufacturers were going all out for new energy, Japanese brands showed an obvious passive attitude in electrification transformation. Akio Toyoda even publicly lashed out at "Electric vehicles are overhyped", and questioned the environmental friendliness of electric vehicles. This strategic misjudgment caused Japanese brands to miss the transition window.
Under various factors, Toyota's once dominating advantage of "fuel saving + high resale value" was gradually filled in. In the fuel vehicle era, Toyota's THS hybrid system was indeed the fuel-saving benchmark. But under the current situation where new energy technology is increasingly mature, its economic advantage no longer has absolute dominance. Represented by domestic plug-in hybrid technologies such as BYD DM-i and Geely Leishen, the fuel consumption when the battery is low has generally entered the 3L-4L/100km range, and they have pure electric range capabilities. For users with home charging conditions, choosing them is often more cost-effective.
Regarding resale value, looking at the May China Auto Resale Value Report released by the China Association of Automobile Distributors, although Toyota still ranks at the top, the resale value shows a downward trend and has been surpassed by domestic brands Trumpchi and Tank. The main reason is that the downward movement of the price system has affected the traditional premium space of used cars. In the long run, the "price war" will certainly dilute the brand value Toyota has accumulated for many years.
Embracing China's Support
Is Toyota's current dilemma due to being too stubborn? Actually, it is not entirely so, but also because the interest relations behind it are too complex.
China Auto Expert Jia Xinguang once stated, the root of Japan's auto industry's dilemma lies in path dependence. Japan's auto industry's supply chain is constructed with "Engine-Transmission" as core technology. It is extremely powerful and has almost insurmountable barriers. Mature technology brings market success, market success brings interest solidification, interest solidification eventually forms transition resistance.
Akio Toyoda also stated frankly, the cost for traditional car companies to fully shift to pure electricity is huge, which could lead to 5.5 million job losses. This is not a small number, Japan's total population is also just over 120 million. Such a result is undoubtedly a catastrophe. Huge fuel vehicle assets and interest chains let Toyota not be able to "all in" pure electricity like startups. Toyota dares not bet, and cannot afford to bet.
In addition, Jia Xinguang also pointed out that in the electrification and intelligence era, about 70% of Japan's fuel vehicle industry chain's technical accumulation cannot be reused across domains, which also leads to Toyota's reaction being relatively slow in the new energy vehicle wave. The pure electric model bZ4X launched in 2022 was a relatively intuitive example. Due to insufficient localization, backward intelligence and other issues, the Chinese market did not accept this car, leading to an official price cut of 30,000 yuan soon after launch for survival. Even so, it could not win back the hearts of Chinese consumers. Autohome data shows that the highest monthly sales of bZ4X was only 1,735 units.
Toyota chooses to further deeply bind with China and persist to the end. For example, establishing the China Chief Engineer system, the first "China R&D led" bZ3X performance was indeed commendable. Cumulative delivery broke through 100,000 units in 14 months, setting the record for the fastest breakthrough of 100,000 units for joint venture new energy. However, its subsequent sales performance fluctuated. Sales in March 2026 dropped to 3,689 units. Sales in April rose back to 10,027 units. It has not yet reached the stable period.
But bZ3X's performance clearly gave Toyota a clear signal: Borrowing strength from China is the way out. First, "Borrowing" people. Currently, Toyota's China Chief Engineer team has expanded from 4 to 7 people. China's local team now has more product definition rights. Second, "Borrowing" Chinese technology. Since we are half a beat slower in software-defined cars, let's work with domestic top autonomous driving suppliers like Momenta, Huawei, Pony.ai. For example, some Toyota models now have intelligent driving assistance systems jointly developed with Momenta. In the field of autonomous driving, the first mass-produced L4 autonomous driving bZ4X Robotaxi cooperated with Pony.ai has been rolled off the assembly line and conducted road testing. Subsequent commercial operation is also in preparation. This open collaborative stance is the inevitable choice for Toyota not to fall behind in the intelligent technology track.
There is also a phenomenon that is quite interesting. According to Nikkei, in the Southeast Asian market once known as the "Japanese Car Backyard", Toyota also made unprecedented adjustments to its supply chain. Not only does it purchase parts produced by Chinese companies in Thailand, but also urges local Tier-1 suppliers to join in. It is reported that this move can help Toyota reduce costs by 30%. It can be seen that although sales in the Chinese market have declined, "Made in China" and "Chinese supply chain" have become an indispensable "lifeline" in Toyota's global strategy. No wonder at the April 2026 Beijing Auto Show, Toyota did not emphasize "Japanese Technology" as usual, but aggressively carried the slogan "with China, for China" and released the "TO YOU" brand concept. After all, from all aspects, China is indeed a "highly desired asset".
Toyota is currently experiencing no small dilemma, not only sales decline, but financial report is also under significant pressure. Although compared to other Japanese brands, Toyota Fiscal Year 2025 did not fall into loss, still resilient but the fact of net profit down 19.2% year-on-year and operating profit down 21.5% year-on-year is still not optimistic. For Fiscal Year 2026, Toyota gave an operating profit expectation of 3 trillion yen, which will be about 20% lower than Fiscal Year 2025. This means Toyota will fall into a profit decline predicament for three consecutive years.
However, to say Toyota's "Golden Reputation" has completely failed is probably too early, after all, as long as Toyota can put down its stature, truly put the slogan "with China, for China" into practice, and launch products that truly understand the needs of Chinese consumers, it still has a big opportunity to continue to stay in this card game.
Snatching Toyota.
Writer｜Hu Chengxu Editor｜Mao Shiyang
Auto Pixel (ID:autopix)Original
June 9, like in previous years, BYD held its 2025 Annual Shareholders' Meeting at its headquarters in Pingshan, Shenzhen.
More people came than in previous years, so the company temporarily moved the venue from a meeting room to the hall usually used for press conferences. Wang Chuanfu said on stage that nearly 1,000 people attended today, the most in history.
During the Q&A session, a long-term shareholder with heavy stakes stood up. He wanted to know where the company would head next.
In Wang Chuanfu's answer, a word appeared for the first time: "Global No. 1". He said that in the next three to five years, BYD will continue to grow. After five years, in terms of scale, it will achieve "true Global No. 1".
Not No. 1 in New Energy, not No. 1 in China, but No. 1 in total vehicle scale including Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai Kia, etc.
When saying this, BYD was experiencing the biggest deceleration since the New Energy era. In the first five months of 2026, BYD sold 788,000 vehicles domestically, down 43.3% year-on-year. The Chinese market is becoming increasingly difficult to provide the incremental growth it enjoyed in the past.
So Wang Chuanfu's goal truly points to overseas.
Take a closer look at what BYD has done in the past two to three years, this goal is not strange. Its playbook no longer resembles that of a company only wanting a seat at the table overseas.
01
What BYD Wants to Grab,
is the Base of Toyota, Hyundai, et al.
To understand how far BYD is from its goal, one must first look at the gap.
Today, the global No. 1 in auto sales is Toyota, selling a bit over 10 million a year; BYD sold 4.6 million vehicles in 2025, ranking sixth globally. There is a gap of more than 5 million vehicles in between, roughly equivalent to creating another BYD of today's scale on top of its existing volume.
As for this extra 5 million-plus vehicles, what is certain is that most of it will not come from the domestic market.
In 2025, China's New Energy penetration rate reached 53.9%, approaching the ceiling; BYD's domestic sales that year fell instead of rose, down by over 300,000 vehicles compared to 2024.
Geely, Chery, and Changan are all chasing, and this local board is nearly at its peak, with limited incremental growth left to extract. The growth gap is thus pushed overseas as a whole. Outside China, the global New Energy penetration rate is still just over 11%.
But "overseas" is never a single block; its biggest chunks happen to be where BYD cannot enter. The US uses tariff and regulatory barriers to seal off the world's largest and most profitable market; Japan and South Korea are fortresses of local brands, hard for outsiders to pry open; India blocks Chinese cars out with high tariffs and entry barriers.
What remains available are South America, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Australia, the UK, Gulf States, as well as parts of Europe and Mexico. The market set is smaller, and the share burden for each location to reach is heavier.
And these open markets are none of them empty fields.
Southeast Asia is Toyota's home court, where it holds nearly 40% share; BYD has only just squeezed into the top 3 in Thailand. Australia is even more extreme, with Toyota holding sales No. 1 for 23 consecutive years, sales at two and a half times the second place; Gulf States are the common dominion of Toyota and Hyundai Kia, where Toyota's market share is champion in countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Oman.
Only in Brazil is the stock held by Stellantis, Volkswagen, Hyundai Kia, and Renault.
List the owners of these markets one by one, names will repeat constantly; the most frequent is Toyota, followed by Hyundai Kia, then Volkswagen, Stellantis, and other European automakers.
So the overseas granary BYD wants to grab is a very specific existing stock, the base built up over decades of fuel cars by Japanese and Korean automakers.
What it truly wants to replace is RAV4, Corolla, Elantra, Creta and similar economy, durable, high-volume cars sold for decades, using its own DM-i PHEV and Blade Battery EV to replace them one by one within the highest-volume price bands in each market.
Straighten out the chain, and the slogan "Global No. 1" landing on the ground is actually a simpler sentence: BYD must take the home base they've sold for decades within the Toyota and Hyundai Kia base.
This is a ruthless fight; how many opportunities does it have?
02
Wang Chuanfu Writes Growth into a Production Schedule
Faced with questions like "how to go from sixth to first", Wang Chuanfu's habit is to rewrite it as a supply-side arithmetic problem.
On June 9, what he talked about most was not the market, but production capacity. He said how many cars can be sold this year depends on how many batteries can be built; the capacity of the 2nd Gen Blade Battery is climbing month by month, adding 20,000 to 30,000 sets each month; production capacity will be released on a large scale by 2027, and both domestic and overseas markets will see volume increases.
An issue that should be about market and product was interpreted by him as "how much I can make". In his narrative, demand seems assumed sufficient, and the bottleneck lies on his production lines.
Wang Chuanfu seems to believe that if the technology curve of domestic New Energy in the past three years reenacts overseas, the remaining problems can be left to the production schedule.
This logic can explain BYD's overseas layout over the past two years.
It has at least six factories under construction or planned overseas: the Brazil Camaçari plant is a renovation of an old factory exited by Ford, secured in 2023, with the first car rolling off the line in July 2025, targeting 300,000 capacity by end of 2026; the Thailand plant started production in 2024, with an annual capacity of 150,000; the Hungary Szeged plant serves as Europe HQ; Turkey plans to invest 1 billion USD (potentially delayed); Uzbekistan and Indonesia each have points set up.
BYD's playbook's starting point is a bet on speed.
Looking back at BYD's rise domestically, it relied on technology first. In 2021, the 4th Gen DM-i made PHEV the same price as same-level fuel cars with lower fuel consumption; the Blade Battery simultaneously solved safety and cost, with PHEV annual sales jumping from 270,000 to over 2 million vehicles in two or three years.
During those years, China's New Energy market was almost empty; whoever put electric cars that were easy to use and cheap on shelves first could capture whole chunks of incremental growth.
This playbook continues to now. At this year's shareholders' meeting, Wang Chuanfu said "I spend about half my time every week swimming in the ocean of technology", believing he is "one of the 120,000 engineers inside BYD".
But now this playbook's process of converting to sales is not so smooth. Geely, Chery, Leapmotor have caught up one by one; DM-i is no longer a secret technique; not just BYD makes Flash Charge.
Technology is becoming more homogeneous, approaching the physical ceiling further; taking half a step forward brings less and less sales.
Overseas is another matter. Outside China, New Energy is still at the starting point BYD faced years ago: low penetration, few good cars, high prices, most markets still dominated by fuel cars.
The technology curve that once lifted BYD to sixth globally has barely started climbing overseas. What BYD wants to do is take the most advantageous position before this curve rises, copying the success already verified domestically exactly onto a larger plate.
This explains why the overseas game is played heavily and urgently. BYD judges the window period is limited; once overseas New Energy also ramps up, pursuers will flood in as they did domestically, and the time left for first movers might not be longer.
It is unwilling to spend time waiting for the market to mature, and even less willing to hand over initiative.
This June, foreign media claimed BYD is considering acquiring an old European factory, having looked at "many factories" in Europe and is talking with automakers including Stellantis.
BYD prefers independently operated factories; it wants to take over brownfield factories that can be quickly renovated and operated independently with clear ownership and operational boundaries, rather than getting stuck again in existing European auto JV, leasing, or multi-party interest structures.
Key factories and supply chain self-led; distribution and brand also controlled by self as much as possible, serving efficiency and speed. It would rather not have risk-sharing partners first, and have a decision chain that can drive the fastest.
The Brazil old factory renovation took only 16 months from groundbreaking to first car off the line. Export modules are the same; a 6 to 8-ship fleet brings overseas logistics into its own hands. On the channel end, BYD took an equity stake in a Thai local dealer, bound a dealer group with over 100 stores in Latin America; UK authorized stores increased from 52 to 125 in one year, and signed a 100,000 unit deal with Uber.
Following this logic, overseas moves connect into a line. The strategy Wang Chuanfu launched is a replicable template; this is why when asked about sales, he answers with "production schedule" logic.
Whether it holds ultimately rests on that most fundamental judgment: the technology-pulled market curve, how steep it was domestically in recent years, will be equally steep in many overseas markets in coming years.
As long as this judgment holds, simplifying the problem into a production schedule is the fastest solution.
03
BYD VS Geely
Same Overseas Expansion, Different Betting Methods
A easily occurring misunderstanding is summarizing BYD's overseas expansion as "more valued" than Chery or Geely.
In terms of aggressiveness, all three are actually neck and neck. In terms of overseas volume, Chery sold 1.34 million vehicles overseas in 2025, nearly 300,000 more than BYD, sitting on the Chinese passenger vehicle export champion spot for over 20 consecutive years; in terms of capital courage, Geely has bought all the way from Volvo, Lotus, Polestar to a powertrain JV with Renault.
The real difference is not in the degree of aggressiveness, but in the strategic judgment behind the aggressiveness.
Chery bets on export breadth: complete vehicle export plus semi-knocked-down assembly, spreading cars to corners others can't reach, essentially an asset-light playbook.
Geely bets on capital and alliances; Li Shufu is more like an allocator. He grabs core capabilities on one side, polishing smart and New Energy tech to optimal; on the other side, he takes shares and makes allies, seeking leverage at the factory and channel levels.
▍Li Shufu
This year, Geely's Qianli Haohan G-ASD obtained EU UN R171 certification, becoming the first Chinese ADAS system to pass this regulatory certification; equipped models can be sold in the EU without country-by-country re-certification.
At the same time, Geely integrated Gothenburg and Frankfurt R&D teams, established Geely Technology Europe, planning to compress the launch time gap between China and overseas models from over a year to within 6 months.
Also this year, Lynk & Co's Europe sales reuse Volvo resources; Geely in South Korea and South America reuses Renault resources. Gan Jiayue of Geely Automobile has said, Chinese brands going overseas is not to "conquer", but to "walk in", local JVs, reusing local resources to make win-wins, this is the natural expression of this logic.
Behind the three choices are three strategic judgments, and also three judgments on where the moat should be built.
Geely's judgment on tech replacement is not so anxious. In March this year, at the Geely Holding FY2025 performance press conference, CEO Gui Shengyue said the future economy passenger car market will likely be replaced by robotaxis. Shortly after, Geely became one of Nvidia's automotive partners.
This judgment shows Geely does not see today's New Energy competition as the final outcome. It believes there will be longer tech rearrangements after the auto industry, so it is more willing to keep elasticity using cooperation and capital allocation.
Because of this difference, Geely is not anxious to raise "No. 1", nor will it compress the time to first to five years. It is more like betting on the future rather than pressing all chips on this current New Energy replacement round. So Geely's choices overseas are almost the opposite of BYD's: willing to accept slower, more dispersed, more complex.
BYD wants to maximize scale with batteries, factories, fleets, and channels; Geely is more willing to take more positions in tech routes, regional markets, and partnership relationships.
04
The Other Side of the Production Schedule
Reaching No. 1 in scale is a goal setting, a strategic judgment, and will eventually become a structure.
In 2026, Geely, Chery, Changan, Great Wall almost all offered oil-electric hybrids, to grab Toyota THS share in markets with inconvenient charging,唯独 BYD absent.
Technically it is not incapable. This round of HEV by Chinese automakers is not replicating Toyota THS. It bypasses engines, planetary gears, and long-term calibration that old auto giants are good at, pulling the battlefield back to electric drive systems more familiar to Chinese automakers, downsizing batteries, removing external charging, keeping the PHEV low fuel logic, becoming a hybrid that doesn't need charging.
But BYD chose not to do it, turning to laying charging facilities overseas.
In March this year, BYD booked a stadium with 18,000 seats to launch the 2nd Gen Blade Battery, simultaneously launching the plan "Flash Charge China, Change the World". Wang Chuanfu spoke alone for an hour and a half; the press conference dragged from two hours to three hours; it set a year-end goal to build 20,000 flash charge stations domestically, with capital expenditure in the billions, and changed flash charge stations to integrated storage and charging solutions with built-in storage cabinets, bypassing the trouble of applying to the grid for capacity expansion, deploying on three parking spots.
From year-end, these piles will start spreading overseas; the MW-level network in Europe has already been demonstrated at the Munich Auto Show.
Building charging piles in target markets is the latest chapter in BYD's overseas line, possibly the most money-burning chapter. BYD bets that once the charging network is laid out, the transitional form matters less. Others keep hybrids; BYD chooses not to bet on multiple fields, pressing all chips on this New Energy transition round.
Put these together, it is a consistent logic: growth is punched out section by section from factories, technology, and charging piles.
BYD is almost the only domestic automaker highly controlling everything from supply chain vertical integration to overseas assets. This heavy asset model makes scale a must-do; in this dimension, sales "No. 1" is just a byproduct.
Vertical integration is only worth it when spread to world-class scale; maintaining a fleet requires enough exports to fill it; building cell capacity at that level requires enough whole vehicles to digest it; investing billions to lay 20,000 charging piles requires enough installed base to feed it.
Chery can stop at export champion; Geely can be a large enough multi-brand group; if BYD's scale is not larger than them, the efficiency of this setup cannot be guaranteed.
This gives BYD the possibility to challenge for Global No. 1, and makes it very hard to accept a "not big enough" result.
This article is original content of Auto Pixel (autopix)
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June 9, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu clearly stated at the 2025 annual general meeting: In 5 years, BYD strives to become the largest globally in terms of scale, achieving annual production and sales of 10 million vehicles by 2030.
Goal: Benchmarking Toyota, Doubling in 5 Years
Wang Chuanfu stated that BYD's goal is to achieve annual production and sales of 10 million vehicles by 2030, at which point it will become the largest automotive group in the world. For reference, Toyota Motor Group's global sales in 2025 were 11.3226 million vehicles, while BYD's 2025 sales were 4.6 million vehicles, marking its first entry into the top 5 global automotive companies. This means BYD needs to more than double its sales within 5 years.
BYD's sales grew rapidly over the past 5 years: 730,000 in 2021, 1.87 million in 2022, 3.02 million in 2023, 4.27 million in 2024, 4.6 million in 2025. From 427,000 to 4.6 million, BYD's 5-year compound growth rate exceeded 60%.
Overseas Market: Original Target Expected to Be Exceeded
In 2025, BYD's overseas sales reached 1.0496 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of over 145%, breaking through the 1 million mark for the first time. From January to May 2026, overseas sales of passenger cars and pickup trucks reached 614,500. Wang Chuanfu revealed that BYD has raised its 2026 overseas sales target from 1.3 million to 1.5 million vehicles, and is expected to exceed the 1.6 million target set at the beginning of the year. Currently, BYD has put overseas factories in Thailand, Brazil, Hungary, etc., into production or under construction, and plans to fully deploy fast-charging stations overseas in Q4 2026.
Capacity Bottleneck: This Year's Sales Depend on Batteries
"BYD's 2026 sales depend on battery production", Wang Chuanfu stated plainly. After the launch of the second-generation Blade Battery and fast-charging technology, orders surged, but capacity is still ramping up. Currently, second-generation Blade Battery capacity is steadily increasing at an increment of 20,000-30,000 vehicles per month, and the company is working "day and night" to meet the challenges. Wang Chuanfu expects larger capacity release in 2027, at which time both domestic and international markets will be empowered simultaneously.
Intelligence: 3.15 Million Vehicles Creating a Data Moat
BYD's investment in the field of intelligent driving is beginning to show results. Currently, BYD has deployed 3.15 million intelligent driving models globally, generating approximately 200 million kilometers of driving data daily. There are over 5,000 intelligent driving R&D engineers, with cumulative investment reaching 100 billion yuan. Wang Chuanfu predicts that L3, L4 level intelligent driving will definitely be implemented earlier. BYD has prepared in terms of chips, algorithms, data, ecosystems, etc., and will quickly launch relevant products once regulations are implemented.
Auto-First | Li Dezhe
Toyota Motor recently announced plans to further increase the scale of its overseas production cuts, raising the total overseas production reduction volume from June to November of this year from the previously planned 38,000 units significantly to 83,000 units, doubling the production cut magnitude. Combined with the preliminary production cut of 40,000 units by Japanese domestic factories for the Middle East market in the first quarter of this year, Toyota's total vehicle capacity reduction plan within half a year exceeds 120,000 units.
Toyota's capacity adjustment this time is highly targeted, mainly aiming at sluggish markets and slow-selling models, including overseas factories in Thailand, India, Malaysia, etc., and overseas production lines dedicated to the Middle East market. Main models with production cuts are concentrated on fuel version RAV4, Camry, Fortuner, Innova and other traditional fuel SUVs and family sedans. Hybrid models and pure electric models capacity remains basically unchanged.
On the surface, short-term geopolitical crisis and supply-demand imbalance might be the main reasons for Toyota's current production cuts, but actually, this also reflects that holding firm to the internal combustion engine base in the global new energy wave has already fallen into a strategic disadvantage.
For a long time, Toyota insisted on hybrid technology route, pure electric model R&D and launch pace was slow, relying on durability and resale value advantages to deep-plow global fuel car blue ocean market. Especially in emerging markets like Middle East, Southeast Asia long-term occupied absolute leading position. However, in recent years, global auto industry landscape completely reconstructed, core markets like China, Europe comprehensively accelerated electrification substitution, Southeast Asia, Middle East and other traditional fuel car "safe havens" also began to gradually introduce new energy supportive policies, local new energy models rose rapidly, diverting fuel car market share.
Toyota continuously shrinking overseas capacity also reflects the new logic of current multinational automakers' global layout. In the past, automakers pursued global layout, capacity full coverage, to reduce production costs with economies of scale; Nowadays global geopolitical conflicts frequent, regional trade barriers rising, car market regional division intensifying, blind expansion of global capacity risk surged. Multinational automakers began to shift from "global expansion" to "precision layout", shut down inefficient, slow-selling fuel car capacity, concentrate funds and capacity into high-growth electrification tracks, becoming common industry practice.
It can be said, this global capacity shrinkage wave initiated by Toyota, also sounded a warning bell for current Chinese independent brands expanding overseas.
In recent years domestic car market fierce competition intensified, top automakers increased investment in overseas factories, complete vehicle exports, Middle East, Southeast Asia are exactly the core growth markets for Chinese automakers going overseas, in 2025 China's car export volume to the Middle East exceeded 1.4 million units, coinciding with Toyota passively yielded market share due to logistics disruption, geopolitical turmoil, many domestic automakers followed suit to increase regional capacity deployment and inventory stocking. But Toyota's dilemma directly exposed the common risks of global car building: single region geopolitical turmoil, sea shipping routes blocked, regional demand changes, can instantly severely damage heavy-asset overseas capacity layout.
At the same time, Chinese automakers going overseas also currently hide two hidden risks: One is some automakers blindly copying Japanese past heavy-asset factory building models, rapidly launching complete vehicle factories in emerging markets, capacity expansion pace far exceeds local new energy penetration rate, very easy to follow Toyota's fuel car capacity excess trap; Two is some overseas products structure single, over-rely on fuel cars or low-price entry-level new energy cars, lack diverse product matrix adapted to different regional policies, road conditions, insufficient ability to resist market volatility.
In addition, geopolitical supply chain risks Toyota is currently facing also reminding Chinese automakers, going overseas cannot only pursue sales volume scale, must simultaneously build diversified shipping routes, disperse regional market layout, accelerate overseas supply chain localization support, reduce impact brought by external sudden risks.
Looking at the overall situation, Toyota's overseas production cut is another heavy signal of the end of the global fuel car era. Auto industry stock competition arrives, geopolitical risk, energy change, electrification wave triple variables are reshaping global auto industry new rules. For all multinational automakers, relying on fuel cars to lie back and win era has completely ended, only by accelerating capacity structure reform, can adapt to the brand new global auto market layout.
In April 2026, the Thailand automotive market presented an extreme polarization pattern: total new car sales 48,394 units, year-on-year growth 2.54%, pure electric vehicle sales surged 90.61%, SUV year-on-year growth 23.91%, but one-ton pickup sales were only 9,950 units, plummeting 29.7% from March, down 5.84% year-on-year, becoming the only core sub-segment with negative growth. Thus, January-April 2026 Thailand pickup cumulative sales 48,802 units, the decline compared to the same period last year widened further, the annual target of 171,000 units (2024 new low) predicted by ttb analytics was precarious, actual sales are highly likely to drop below 165,000 units.
Although the duopoly structure has not shaken, the 'precipitous' drop of top models is no longer in doubt. Toyota Hilux Travo/Revo April sales 5,104 units, down 27.1% from previous month, January-April cumulative 23,098 units, market share slightly rose to 51.3%; Isuzu D-MAX followed closely, April sales 3,469 units, plummeted 25.2% from previous month, cumulative 17,760 units, market share 34.9%. The two Japanese brands combined still accounted for 86.2% of the share, but the significant shrinkage in absolute sales indicates that even top products with the most complete dealer networks and highest residual values cannot withstand systemic risks.
The rest of the traditional fuel brands suffered a complete defeat: Ford Ranger nearly halved month-on-month, Mitsubishi Triton plummeted 63.7%, Nissan Navara has basically withdrawn from mainstream competition.
Chinese brand performance showed significant divergence. Pure electric pickup leader Geely Radar RD6 April sales 85 units, down 24.8% month-on-month, but the drop was far smaller than most fuel models, January-April cumulative 327 units, continued to hold the top spot among Chinese brands and the first place in the pure electric pickup sub-market. Great Wall Cannon Sahar became one of the few models growing against the trend, April sales 34 units, surged 142.9% month-on-month, but the base was extremely low and scale has not yet formed. Other Chinese brands continued to face pressure: Foton e-Tunland down 61.5% month-on-month, MG Extender plummeted 71.4%.
This divergence between pickups and the overall Thailand car market is essentially the conflict between production tool attributes and consumption upgrade trends, compounded by multiple policy and economic shocks:
Final Thoughts: Looking forward, the turning point for the Thailand pickup market has yet to appear, the golden age of traditional diesel pickups has ended. Low-carbon transformation has become the only way out for the industry, and Chinese new energy pickups represented by Radar RD6, with differentiated product positioning and technical advantages, are expected to seize the initiative during the market restructuring process, becoming a key force to break the long-term Japanese monopoly structure.
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