BYD exported 120,083 new energy vehicles in March 2026, a 65.12% jump from March 2025 and 19.37% above February's figure, according to the company's monthly filing. [1] Overseas volume ran at 40% of total sales — the second month in a row close to half. Chairman Wang Chuanfu's team has raised its 2026 overseas target from 1.3 million units to 1.5 million and told analysts in a March 30 post-earnings call the company is "highly confident" it will hit that number, with sources saying overseas markets could eventually account for half of all BYD sales. [2]

The paper's Tuesday brief recorded Tesla's reclamation of the Q1 BEV crown. That is still true. What this brief adds is the denominator. BYD's first-quarter NEV total fell 30.01% year over year to 700,463 units, but overseas sales reached 321,165 — a quarterly overseas record the trend line now assumes. [1] The domestic slump is in the headline; the export ramp is in the curve. March sales in Thailand carried the Thai prime minister's decision to drive a BYD amid local gas-price spikes. The company's first European plant in Hungary and its Indonesian factory began ramping in March. [3]

The two stories are not the same story. Tesla's Q1 crown is a quarter; BYD's overseas ramp is a structural relocation of production outside China on a timeline the tariff regime is writing. Citi has flagged that BYD's domestic Chinese sales may turn unprofitable in Q1 2026 — the export engine is what makes 2026 pencil. Q1 profit margin will answer whether 1.5 million is a stretch or a floor.

-- DAVID CHEN, Beijing