Key Findings
- China overtook the United States in BEV sales in 2015, and in 2024 BEV sales in China reached 6.7 million compared with 1.3 million in the United States.
- Chinese automakers have held the plurality or majority share of the global BEV market since 2015, while U.S. companies averaged 20 percent global market share over the same period.
- Chinese BEV sales remain overwhelmingly domestic, but overseas sales increased from 3 percent of Chinese annual BEV sales in 2015 to 12 percent in 2024 and 14 percent through June 2025.
- Europe has been the largest overseas market for Chinese BEVs, while Asia-Pacific sales are rising quickly and are on track to surpass Europe by the end of 2025.
- BYD surpassed Tesla in 2025 as the world’s top BEV seller through June, with most BYD sales occurring in China and Tesla’s global sales declining that year amid the comparison period cited in the report.
Overview
This SCSP report examines the rise of China’s battery electric vehicle sector and its implications for global technology competition. Focusing specifically on fully electric automobiles with rechargeable batteries and no gasoline engine, the report traces three phases of development: state-led innovation policy from 2001 to 2015, domestic market development from 2015 to 2020, and global expansion from 2020 onward. Its findings are based on SCSP analysis of EV sales data from EV-Volumes.com and other cited sources, alongside a review of Chinese planning documents, subsidies, market incentives, infrastructure expansion, and company strategies. The report finds that China became the world’s largest BEV market, that Chinese firms now sell the majority of the world’s BEVs, and that most Chinese company sales still occur domestically even as overseas sales grow. It highlights BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling, and Geely as leading Chinese players, while comparing Chinese sales trends with U.S., European, and other international competitors. The report argues that China’s BEV success reflects the effects of long-term industrial policy and an innovation ecosystem that treats vehicles as software-defined technology platforms. It frames the issue as relevant to U.S. economic competitiveness, advanced manufacturing, supply-chain resilience, connected-vehicle data security, and national security policy.
The competition in EVs is a case study for how America might lose leadership in a critical technology.
SCSP
Recommendations
From the report
Documents
Publication
Published by the Special Competitive Studies Project. Co-publishers and external authors, where they exist, are credited in the byline above.