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After the implementation of the China-Europe understanding on hybrid vehicles, Europe provided an upward export space for Chinese hybrids. However, an easily overlooked issue is that even adding a bit to last year's 302,000 vehicles, the share per manufacturer won't be much. Media reports suggest that recently several automakers have been going to Beijing to negotiate with competent authorities on how to distribute export quotas.
"Fighting for quotas" superficially reflects the enthusiasm of automakers going global, but upon deeper thought, it is worth pondering. In the past, Chinese automakers competing overseas focused on lower prices and faster market penetration. Now the European market is shrinking, with limited entry tickets. Whether one can secure them and sustain after securing them is no longer just a sales volume issue, but about having technical cards up your sleeve, whether you can flexibly adjust products and rapidly adapt to regulations within rules set by others. In other words, Chinese car exports are moving from "selling cars abroad" to a much more hardcore stage.
This judgment becomes more concrete when looking at the sales data from October. For instance, BYD sold 490,168 units in October, becoming the sales leader again, which is no surprise. Among them, its overseas sales reached 169,564 units, accounting for nearly 35% of its total sales, a year-on-year increase of 103%. A few years ago, this overseas proportion and growth rate would have been almost unimaginable.
Moreover, BYD does not simply transplant domestic models to Europe. Instead, it modifies products and adjusts strategies based on the regulations, road conditions, and consumer habits of different markets. This highlights a fact about BYD that hasn't been fully discussed: its R&D depth goes far beyond just the "Hybrid + Blade Battery" layer.
In most people's impressions, BYD's strengths lie in batteries and hybrid technology. That's correct, but this is just part of the "big fish" harvested from its "technology pond". Its motors, electronic control systems, power semiconductors, and automotive-grade chips have all been developed in-house. It can independently produce blade batteries, permanent magnet synchronous motors, electronic controls, and IGBT/silicon carbide power modules, etc., with a very high self-sufficiency rate in core areas.
More worth mentioning is its chip technology. BYD established its own IC design department and was the first domestic automaker to mass-produce automotive-grade IGBT and SiC power chips. At the intelligence level, the 4nm automotive-grade intelligent driving chip "Xuanji A3" has achieved mass production. Single chip computing power exceeds 700 TOPS, and three chips working together exceed 2100 TOPS, supporting L3 and L4 autonomous driving assistance. More importantly, its chips and self-developed algorithms are designed collaboratively, unlike many automakers who buy chips and then adapt them later.
Summed up, these capabilities are no longer just leading in a single technology, but a structural leadership. From power semiconductors to the "Three Electric" systems, from hybrid systems to intelligent driving chips, key links do not rely on external procurement, and most parts of the vehicle can be manufactured in-house. UBS (UBS) previously calculated when tearing down a BYD Seal, over 70% of the parts were produced by BYD itself, a ratio more than twice that of Tesla. To put it plainly, many automakers follow the path of "design the car, procure parts, assemble for delivery", whereas BYD has installed a significant portion of its supply chain within itself.
This structure manifests as cost and rhythm advantages during normal times, and flexibility in modifying strategies in overseas markets. If Europe suddenly changes emission standards for a certain category, or imposes requirements on the localization ratio of power devices, if electronic control and power chips are externally purchased, changing a parameter requires going through another cycle with the supplier; whereas if the parts involved are self-developed and self-produced, the adjustment chain is naturally much shorter. Building factories overseas follows the same logic. BYD's factories in Thailand, Brazil, and Uzbekistan are already operational, and the Hungary factory is also being advanced. Localized production is not just about circumventing tariffs, but also about moving the controllable supply chain directly to locations closer to the market.
Of course, this doesn't mean vertical self-research is the only path. The external procurement model has its own flexibility, short R&D cycles, quick model launches, and is effective for rapid iteration in the domestic market. But global market rules are changing. Variables like quotas, regulations, patent reviews, and localization ratios are beyond the control of automakers. Without core technology in hand, encountering rule adjustments means relying on suppliers; but if one has it in hand, one can independently modify and adjust.
In fact, due to reasons like technical routes and market performance, BYD naturally becomes a sample worth and convenient to observe. Among Chinese automakers, multiple are walking the self-research path, just with different depths and focuses. However, the fact that going overseas reaches a point where quotas require "going to Beijing to fight for" indicates that competition is no longer in the showroom, but about who can use their own technical systems to grasp a constantly changing global market. Short-term looks at sales volume, but long-term looks at whether you still have cards in hand to play when domestic and international rules change.
