BYD sold a record 305,743 fully electric passenger cars in October, up 37.38% from last year, according to BYD. It was BYD’s third consecutive monthly record for electric cars, while plug-in hybrid sales fell 17.23% from 214,297 to 177,382.
Total vehicle sales rose 10.97% from 441,706 in October 2025 to 490,168. October was BYD’s strongest month since December 2024, when it sold 514,809 vehicles.
Fully Electric Cars Account for 63% of Passenger Sales
Fully electric cars made up 63.28% of BYD’s passenger-car sales in October, up from 50.95% a year earlier. BYD sold 222,559 of them in October 2025, its official filing shows. ElectricCarsReport also tracked October as the third straight record month for BYD’s fully electric cars.
October’s full EV sales also rose 11.94% from September. Plug-in hybrids fell again, 3.37% over the same period. The increase in electric-car sales offsets the hybrid decline, or at least it seems that way month by month.
Exports More Than Doubled but Fell From September
BYD exported 170,194 vehicles in October, up 102.84% from 83,904 a year earlier but down 5.81% from September. Overseas shipments reached 1,513,154 through October, clearing the earlier 1.5 million annual target, CnEVPost reported.
Analysts who attended a September briefing said management had raised the 2026 overseas outlook to close to 2 million vehicles, according to KrASIA. Reaching 2 million would require around another 243,000 exports per month in November and December, compared with 170,194 in October.
Exports have also declined from August’s 189,466, a record that followed the July shipments EVXL covered.
BYD Is Still Behind Last Year’s Total
BYD sold 3,621,744 vehicles from January through October, 2.16% below the 3,701,852 sold in the same period last year. Fully electric passenger-car sales are up 5.86% year to date, but plug-in hybrids are down 11.02%. Month by month it looked as if the full EVs were offsetting the loss from the plug-in hybrids, but over the year it is exactly the opposite.
The same August EVXL report cited an earlier full-year projection of 5 million to 5.5 million vehicles. Even the lower number of 5 million would now require 689,128 sales in each remaining month, about 41% above October’s total.
Ford Is Measuring Itself Against BYD
BYD passenger cars are not sold in the United States. Chinese-made EVs face a 100% tariff, while federal connected-vehicle rules restrict sales by China-linked manufacturers beginning with model year 2027, as an earlier EVXL article examined.
Still, Ford is using BYD as a benchmark. On the October 29 earnings call, CEO Jim Farley claimed the motors, gearboxes and inverters in Ford’s new EV platform were about 30% more efficient than BYD’s, InsideEVs reported. InsideEVs noted it was not clear which BYD powertrain was used for the comparison.
EVXL’s Take
October’s EV growth covered a good chunk of the lost hybrid sales, but that is not the same as a full recovery. Ten-month sales still trail last year’s ten-month period, and exports have fallen for two straight months since August’s record.
BYD already exceeded its original overseas target, but management’s raised outlook depends on a great rebound for its sales. The next export report will be more revealing than another monthly electric-car sales figure.
Sources: BYD, ElectricCarsReport, CnEVPost, KrASIA, InsideEVs.
EVXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting is by Damien Kesteloo, edited by Haye Kesteloo.
