Electric cars are no longer rare; they’re everywhere now. In 2024 alone, more than 14 million electric cars were sold worldwide, and experts believe this number will double in just a few years. Countries like China, the U.S., and India are all moving fast toward an electric future.

But the most exciting part isn’t just the numbers, it’s the story of who’s leading this race. While the world was focused on Tesla, another company quietly climbed to the top: BYD, short for Build Your Dreams.

BYD isn’t just selling more cars; it’s changing the game. Their special Blade Battery is known for safety, their hybrids and EVs dominate in China, and now they’re winning markets in places like Brazil, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

And here’s what makes it truly inspiring: BYD’s success didn’t come from huge advertising or fancy strategies. It came from the vision of one man – Wang Chuanfu.

Wang wasn’t born rich or powerful. In fact, his story begins in one of China’s poorest provinces. Born in 1966, he lost both parents as a teenager and was raised by his brother and sister-in-law. Life was hard, but Wang never gave up. He worked tirelessly, studied with determination, and finally earned a place at Central South University in the 1980s.

That moment became the start of a journey that would not only change his life but also reshape the global car industry.

Chapter 1: Humble Beginnings 

Growing up during Mao’s Cultural Revolution and a devastating famine, Wang Chuanfu saw China at its weakest. Anhui was one of the poorest regions, but despite grinding poverty Wang later remembered his family as “poor but happy.” His father, though only a carpenter, instilled values of integrity and diligence. Perhaps this early exposure to craftsmanship planted a seed – young Wang would often watch his father build and dream of creating things himself. 

At 13, Wang’s world was upended. His father fell ill and eventually passed away, leaving the family destitute. His five older sisters rushed into marriages to secure dowries; his 18-year-old brother quit school to earn wages; and the rest of the family was on the brink of collapse. Wang’s own education was in peril when he lost his mother just before high-school graduation exams. Distraught, he ran home and missed his exams, costing him a chance at vocational school. 

Orphaned and nearly hopeless, Wang wanted to drop out and support his siblings instead. Miraculously, his older brother and sister-in-law refused. They saw potential in him and sacrificed to keep him in school.

Each week they scraped together just 10 yuan to help Wang stay in class – once even pawning jewelry door-to-door to cover costs.

Their grit paid off: in 1983 Wang won admission to Central South University (now in Changsha) to study metallurgical physical chemistry. This entry into higher education was the first big break for Wang and his family’s sacrifices were not in vain. He later earned a master’s degree in Beijing, but even at university, Wang remained grounded. He joined the Communist Party, even won titles like “campus dance master”, yet always spent weekends helping with his brother’s small shop. 

Little did Wang know, these humble origins and unyielding family bonds would shape the business culture he later built. The adversity of his youth taught him that success required grit, sacrifice, and loyalty – traits he carried into every boardroom and factory line in his future. 

Chapter 2: The Restless Scholar 

By the late 1980s, Wang Chuanfu had become a rising star in China’s research world. After graduate school, he secured a postgraduate position at the prestigious Beijing General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals, eventually rising to an executive role. His sharp mind and leadership caught the eye of a joint venture between the institute and Baosteel Group – a new battery manufacturing plant in Shenzhen, China’s first special economic zone. Wang became the General Manager of that plant. 

Shenzhen was booming and Wang was swept up in the excitement. Yet he remained restless. He studied news about the battery industry, spotting opportunity: Japan was phasing out nickel-cadmium batteries due to pollution. Wang proposed the Chinese plant pivot toward these batteries – but his ideas were dismissed by the old guard.

By 1995, with a wife expecting a child and a promising career, Wang made a daring choice: he resigned to start his own battery company. Friends and investors thought he was crazy. He had no capital, no car-making experience, and he didn’t even own a driver’s license. But Wang had conviction. He believed that China’s cheap labor and his chemical expertise could disrupt the global battery market. 

“He was about to leap from stability into the unknown,” one colleague later said. Wang’s newly found freedom was terrifying and exhilarating. He named the venture Yadi Electronics (after his factory street) and, in November 1995, set up shop in a small workshop in Shenzhen.

Yadi would soon be renamed BYD – short for “Biyadi”, and later branded as “Build Your Dreams.” This was the start of something ambitious, but none could predict then how far the company would go. 

Chapter 3: The Battery King 

Starting BYD was a scramble. Wang had brilliant ideas but zero funds. Bank after bank said “no”, and investors balked. In desperation, he turned to family. His cousin, already a successful entrepreneur, lent him 2.5 million yuan. Together they convinced a friend of the cousin to invest – the friend even emptied his life savings after meeting Wang. 

With just ¥2.5 million, BYD launched on November 18, 1995. The early conditions were Spartan: employees slept on makeshift beds in the workshop to save money, and Wang himself missed the birth of his daughter, working around the clock.

In those cramped quarters, Wang and his small team immersed themselves in battery patents and reverse-engineered competitors’ designs. By late 1995 they started producing nickel-cadmium batteries. But a bigger problem loomed: BYD could not afford expensive automated factory lines. 

Here Wang’s ingenuity shined.

He applied a first-principles cost analysis: he calculated that paying manual workers would cost far less overall than buying and operating automated robots for small production runs. The result was a breakthrough factory design: highly labor-intensive, with most machines built in-house by BYD. This vertical integration (controlling even the tools) slashed costs dramatically.

With just over one million yuan invested in the production line, BYD was producing 4,000 NiCd batteries per day by 1997 – more than any other factory in China. 

BYD’s low-cost, high-volume strategy paid off. By 1997, BYD was China’s largest battery maker, selling 150 million batteries in just three years. Big international mobile-phone companies suddenly took notice. The name BYD was unknown then, and no one trusted a scrappy newcomer. Wang responded with fearless marketing.

He sent his top salesperson, a tenacious woman named Stella Li, to Motorola’s headquarters in Georgia, USA.

With little English and an overflowing box of BYD batteries, Li pitched Motorola to switch suppliers. Initially she annoyed executives with her persistence, but eventually her determination impressed them. Motorola agreed to a trial, marking BYD’s first major global contract. (Stella Li would go on to become CEO of BYD Americas.) 

Bolstered by Stella’s success, BYD’s big customers started lining up. In 2002, on the heels of this momentum, BYD prepared for a public listing in Hong Kong. Wang honored the loyal employees who built the company: when planning stock options, he insisted that “what was said will be done.” Though there were no formal contracts, the 34 original executives each received stakes in the company, soon making them millionaires. 

By 2003, BYD’s meteoric rise became the talk of the industry. It overtook Japan’s Sanyo to become the world’s largest battery manufacturer. Only a few years earlier Wang was a penniless village boy; now he led a publicly traded powerhouse. Yet at the peak of his battery success, Wang’s ambitions were shifting again. He looked at another booming sector – the automobile – and saw a new challenge. 

Chapter 4: The Car King

Wang Chuanfu decided to tackle the auto industry next. In January 2003, ignoring skepticism from partners and analysts, BYD acquired a 77% stake in QinChuan Automobile (also known as Xi’an Qinchuan Auto) for HK$269 million (about ¥270 million). QinChuan was a struggling maker of a cheap mini-sedan called the “Flyer” (built with Suzuki).

The announcement shocked BYD shareholders and the stock crashed, wiping out about 2.7 billion Hong Kong dollars of value in days. 

Wang held firm. At first, BYD continued to sell the old Flyer (rebranded as BYD Flyer), but it was slow to catch on. Wang immediately set to work on a new model. The first prototype (codenamed 316) looked strange and was harshly rejected by dealers. Rather than push a product no one wanted, Wang famously had his engineers scrap the 316 – destroying it rather than wasting time. Legend has it he personally smashed the prototype’s dashboard to emphasize the point. 

Next, Wang pivoted. He told his designers to make something people already recognized, but at a much lower price. The result was the BYD F3, launched in September 2005.

The F3 looked remarkably like a Toyota Corolla – so much so that many parts were interchangeable.

This was no accident; Wang had essentially cloned the Corolla’s design features to save on development costs. He applied the same manual-production insight that made batteries cheap: BYD built its own assembly lines with lots of workers, eschewing costly automation. This slashed costs, allowing the F3 to sell for about half the price of a Corolla. 

Chinese consumers responded enthusiastically. Within a year, F3 sales topped 100,000 units, the fastest any domestic model had ever reached that mark. BYD quickly followed with the F3R hatchback and the larger F6 sedan – both of which bore striking resemblances to popular Toyota and GM models.

In 2007, BYD celebrated its new Pingshan plant in Shenzhen with a lavish press conference. The complex wasn’t just a factory: it included dormitories, restaurants and shops for workers. In a break from corporate norms, Wang even chose to live and eat alongside his staff. As he told CNN: “Due to work requirements I became the chairman of this company, but after work we are all equal. We live and talk together. This is our culture.” 

At that 2007 event, Wang Chuanfu laid out a bold vision: he wanted BYD to be China’s No.1 automaker by 2015 and a world leader by 2025. So confident was he that a few months later BYD announced it would debut at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show – a surprising bid for global legitimacy.

However, the timing was off. Everything was rushed and many details weren’t ready. In Detroit, journalists found translation errors in the BYD brochures and quirks in the cars. One brochure even read nonsensically: “Adopt the reclaimed stuff, could be recycled.” Media outlets had a field day poking fun. One reporter quipped that the F3’s front looked like a Toyota Corolla and the rear like a Chevy Optra. Bloggers pointed out malfunctioning doors and made sarcastic videos titled, “Welcome to Detroit. Now come back when you’re ready.” 

Yet not all the attention was negative. Some experts noted BYD’s real edge: new energy vehicles. While American and European automakers still struggled with even a single hybrid or electric model, BYD had quietly been developing both.

In 2008, the Tesla Roadster burst onto the scene, capturing headlines with its speed and range. Suddenly Musk’s company was seen as the gold standard of EVs, and BYD – with its modest, homegrown cars – seemed outmatched.

In a live TV interview that year, Elon Musk laughed off the notion of BYD as a competitor, asking rhetorically “Have you seen their car?” – a moment that stung BYD’s pride. 

BYD had a compelling story and the designs to go with it, but it still needed time to work out its weaknesses. The global stage was a tough school, and Wang Chuanfu was only just starting to learn the lessons. 

Chapter 5: The Sage of Omaha 

Just when it looked like BYD’s wild ride might slow, a stroke of fortune arrived from Omaha. Charlie Munger – Warren Buffett’s legendary right-hand man – had been monitoring BYD from afar. Convinced of Wang’s potential, Munger persuaded Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway to invest.

In 2008, Berkshire’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings purchased about ¥1.6 billion (US$230 million) of new BYD stock, giving Buffett roughly a 10% stake. The move sent BYD’s share price soaring overnight and transformed Wang Chuanfu into one of China’s richest people. It was a splashy endorsement: Buffett later recalled never feeling more privileged than backing BYD. 

Buffett himself stayed admirably hands-off, but it was Charlie Munger’s praise that echoed through BYD’s halls. Munger admired Wang’s rise from a poor background to global success, calling him “a genius” and a “workaholic”.

In a 2019 investor meeting, Munger even extolled the virtues of Wang’s older brother – the man who had sacrificed everything to support Wang’s education – calling him a hero of Confucian values. 

Buoyed by this support, BYD plunged into electric vehicles.

In 2009 they launched the E6, their first pure battery-electric car, aimed at taxis and fleets. But the pivot had a price. Wang had believed that plug-in hybrids and EVs were the future, so he reallocated resources toward them and cut funding for gasoline car development. The dealers – who were mostly dependent on gasoline models for sales and service – revolted.

By 2010 BYD’s revenues actually fell by 8% and net profit plunged 58%. The next year was even worse: profits collapsed nearly 89% in the first half of 2011. Executives resigned, factory layoffs loomed, and product quality suffered amid the chaos. 

It was a bitter irony. On one hand, BYD was backed by Buffett and spearheading EVs; on the other hand, its old-school cars were dying and the brand’s reputation was slipping. Elon Musk’s taunt on television added salt to injury. BYD had bet on the future and stumbled in the present. In boardrooms in Shenzhen, Wang Chuanfu now faced a crucial question: could BYD survive this downturn and regain its momentum? 

Chapter 6: The Rethink

By 2012, Wang had decided enough was enough. He needed to shake BYD out of its lethargy and fix its image of being a low-quality “copycat” brand. His solution was radical and personal.

One day Wang visited a local Mercedes-Benz dealer and handed over a credit card. He drove off with a brand-new S-Class – the ultimate symbol of luxury auto engineering. Wang then convened BYD’s R&D engineers and held up the car keys.

“Tear it apart,” he said bluntly.

Initially stunned, one young engineer asked, “But sir, that car is brand new…” Wang simply grinned and scratched the S-Class’s paint with the key, streaking the side. “Now it’s not new,” he replied. Convinced by this jolt that the assignment was serious, the engineers dismantled the Mercedes piece by piece, learning its secrets. 

This moment of lab time was more than technical training; it was symbolic of Wang’s attitude. He was ready to learn from the best. Even Buffett and Munger sensed the shift. They arranged a visit to Wang in Shenzhen, not for due diligence but to show moral support. Their presence said: we believe in BYD, keep pushing forward. And Wang did. 

By 2014-2015, the hard work paid dividends.

China’s government was now aggressively promoting electric vehicles, and BYD was perfectly positioned. In 2015 BYD sold 61,722 new-energy vehicles (a category that included hybrids and EVs), claiming about 11% of the global plug-in market – enough to call BYD the world’s largest NEV company at that time. That year, Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio even signed on as BYD’s global brand ambassador, showcasing the company’s new green credentials. 

These were breakthrough years. BYD’s plug-in hybrid models and electric cars began winning plaudits. In the first half of 2016, sales of BYD’s new-energy vehicles jumped 130% year-over-year, capturing 65% of China’s plug-in hybrid market. The company held a grand celebration in its U.S. electric-bus plant, announcing a quadrupling of production. Wang was optimistic that soon, BYD might crack the lucrative U.S. car market as well. For the first time in years, BYD felt like a comeback story instead of a cautionary tale. 

Chapter 7: The Darkest Moment 

Just when it seemed BYD was back on track, a new storm arrived. Between 2017 and 2019, the Chinese government began cutting subsidies for electric vehicles, in a crackdown to force out weak players. The effect was swift and brutal. BYD’s profits in 2019 were only ¥1.6 billion, a fraction of what they had been – a year Wang later called “the darkest moment” in BYD’s history. For a while, the company’s only goal was survival. 

Meanwhile, global competition heated up. Tesla, now well-established, introduced its Model Y to rave reviews, cementing its place as the world’s leading pure-EV brand. Tesla’s Shanghai factory ramped up, erasing BYD’s early advantage in Chinese manufacturing. Another new rival emerged as well: a fresh Chinese battery company began challenging BYD’s position as the top supplier in Asia.

Then came 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Almost overnight, borders shut and factories halted worldwide. With economies in lockdown, the car market collapsed. Many auto companies scrambled to cut costs with massive layoffs. But Wang Chuanfu took a different path. He knew the names and faces of his 240,000 workers; he shared meals with them and knew their children by name. Firing them felt wrong. Instead, Wang converted 3,000 engineers from EV duties to wartime mode: they retooled production lines to manufacture masks and sanitizers. BYD’s factories churned out PPE, eventually making it the world’s largest mask producer. 

It was a brilliant move. The income from mask sales helped BYD stay afloat, but more importantly it built goodwill. When the pandemic finally eased, BYD factories had stayed active, and Wang’s team had been ready. Secretly, while the world focused on vaccines, BYD’s engineers were racing on the next battery breakthroughs. 

Chapter 8: The Comeback 

By mid-2020, BYD was ready to dazzle again. The engineers unveiled a new battery chemistry and design: a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack they branded the Blade Battery. To prove its safety, BYD produced a now-famous video.

First, they drove a steel nail through an ordinary EV battery – it burst into flames. Then they drove the nail through the BYD Blade battery – nothing happened. No fire, no smoke, just a tiny spark. This demonstration went viral, earning BYD a reputation for industry-leading safety. Product innovation was not the only change. BYD had been building its image quietly.

In late 2020, it launched the BYD Han – an all-electric luxury sedan that stunned observers. Designed by top international talent, the Han looked and felt as premium as a Tesla Model S, even surpassing it in interior finish. Wang chose the name “Han” after China’s Han dynasty, signaling national pride: this was a flagship that showed Chinese auto engineering had truly arrived. After the Han, BYD rolled out dozens of new models: SUVs, sports sedans and more, each targeting segments where Tesla was strong. 

The market took notice in a big way. Between 2020 and 2023, BYD’s annual vehicle sales skyrocketed from around 427,000 to 3,024,417 – an astonishing 700% growth in just three years. In early 2025, reports were finally crowning BYD the world’s largest EV producer. (One recent analysis noted that BYD delivered 207,734 all-electric cars in December 2024, a record high.) Once again, BYD stood at the top of the global EV leaderboard, ready to press its advantage. The next logical step: go global. 

Chapter 9: The Blowback 

In 2023 BYD made a grand entrance into Europe. At the International Motor Show in Munich, its all-electric lineup turned heads: sleek sedans, futuristic buses and SUVs that looked ready to challenge the best. Even Elon Musk, asked about BYD’s success, admitted the Chinese models were “highly competitive.” Yet BYD’s ascent triggered a strong backlash in the West.

Headlines warned of a “Chinese EV invasion.” Critics alleged BYD was being unfairly subsidized by its government and hinted at tariffs to come.

In Europe’s first year of sales, BYD managed just about 1.1% market share – a tiny foothold despite being the global NEV champion. 

Cultural missteps piled on. In China BYD had popularized its motto “Build Your Dreams,” even using the acronym BYD. But in Europe the slogan sounded kitschy. Some owners complained and dealerships quietly removed the English nameplates. One viral YouTube video showed a man painstakingly peeling the “Build Your Dreams” badge off his BYD car. 

Worse yet, BYD’s marketing misfires fueled paranoia.

A well-meaning video compilation by BYD celebrated China’s EV industry rise, urging Chinese automakers to “crush the old myths” about their quality. Western media twisted this into “crush the old legends,” as if BYD were declaring war on Ford and GM. Suddenly BYD was painted as an aggressor, a tactic of nationalist fear. 

In September 2023, the EU Commission announced an investigation into Chinese EVs for alleged unfair subsidy. In the United States, official scrutiny and a long history of distrust effectively shut Chinese brands out of the market, labeling them national security risks. In the face of these headwinds, BYD’s dream of conquering the West suddenly looked very uphill indeed. 

But amidst the storm, a surprising lifeline appeared – not in Europe or the U.S., but in Latin America. 

Chapter 10: The Overtake 

In early 2023, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met China’s leader Xi Jinping. As they toured an auto plant, Lula asked if any Chinese EV companies would take over a Ford factory that had closed in Bahia. BYD answered the call.

By late 2023, BYD was reactivating Ford’s old plant, promising thousands of jobs and massive investment. In true Brazilian flair, the state even released a welcome video celebrating BYD. 

The move paid off wildly. BYD started rolling out models like the Dolphin and the Song Pro under local release strategies. By mid-2024, BYD had captured roughly 72% of Brazil’s electric vehicle market, making it the best-selling EV brand in the Americas that year. More tellingly, BYD’s worldwide figures kept pouring in: by year-end it had overtaken Tesla to become the top-selling EV maker globally.

News reports blared that BYD had “surpassed Tesla” and become “the world’s largest maker of pure electric cars”. 

Part of BYD’s appeal in Brazil (and other developing markets) was its “Build Your Dreams” ethos. The slogan resonated in countries where an electric car had long seemed out of reach for ordinary people. Videos from India, Indonesia and Thailand showed families celebrating when they bought a BYD: decorations on the car, priests blessing it, children dancing.

For many, a BYD was the first safe, high-quality electric car they could afford, and it made them feel “part of the future.” Wang Chuanfu himself often attended these handover ceremonies. He understood better than anyone what hope and progress meant to someone born with nothing. 

In a delicious twist, history had come full circle. BYD – once known as a bit of a Toyota copycat – was now supplying Toyota with batteries and helping to build its EVs. It had gone from a punchline on U.S. TV to the company whose blade battery was used in Tesla vehicles.

Charlie Munger, speaking at a 2019 meeting, likened Wang Chuanfu’s story to a Chinese Confucian miracle. He reminded audiences that Wang was literally an orphaned peasant’s son who became the genius behind a global auto empire. “I am terribly impressed with BYD,” Munger said. “Wang Chuanfu is the eighth son of a peasant… An older brother recognized a genius and gave up everything in life to nurture that little brother. Now that’s Confucianism. And Confucianism partly created BYD.”

Today BYD’s legacy is clear. From a makeshift workshop to a $100+ billion company, it defied predictions and reshaped the auto industry. (Interestingly, another former Communist country’s carmaker, Vietnam’s VinFast, has also made headlines for breaking into the U.S. market.) BYD’s ascendance sent a message: global technology leadership is no longer a Western monopoly. The orphan boy from Anhui had, against all odds, built a business that rivals and even surpasses the giants of Detroit and Silicon Valley.

His journey is as much a testament to personal will as it is to a shift in economic power.