For the first time since 2020, BYD has experienced two consecutive months of production drops

In August, BYD’s production declined for the second consecutive month, marking its first such monthly contraction since 2020. This development further indicates that the Chinese electric vehicle giant is slowing down after years of massive expansion.

According to a monthly report submitted on Monday to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world produced 353,090 electric and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles globally last month. This represents a decrease of 3.78% compared to the same month last year. This comes after a 0.9% drop in July.

BYD’s production last fell for two consecutive months in June and July of 2020.

In June, Reuters reported that BYD, which is Tesla’s largest competitor in China, was slowing down production by cutting back on shifts at certain factories in China and had postponed plans to introduce new production lines.

Its sales in China, however, dropped 14.3% year-on-year to 292,813 vehicles, marking the fourth consecutive monthly decline, despite a slight increase in global sales. Sales data released on Monday indicated a rapid increase in BYD’s sales across Europe.

Nevertheless, nearly 80% of BYD’s total sales come from China.

Since April, BYD has seen a decline in PHEV production and sales. In contrast, total EV sales rose by 34.4% and production grew by 26% in August compared to the previous year. Since April, BYD has started to produce and sell a larger number of pure electric vehicles compared to plug-in hybrids.