BYD’s new strategy: “E-cars are cheaper than combustion engines”

Price war
BYD wants to make electric cars cheaper than combustion engines in China

09.04.2024

By Henrik Bork

4 minutes Reading time

It’s not just the price of electricity for electric cars and plug-in hybrids that is cheaper in China than gasoline for combustion engines. The sales prices of BYD brand electric cars are now also lower than those of gasoline cars.

“Electricity is cheaper than gasoline”: This is the new slogan that BYD sells its electric cars and hybrids. The new slogan is making traditional car managers, including those of Volkswagen in China, sweat with fear. Because it is a statement of fact and a direct declaration of war on the combustion engine.

It has long been a fact that the running costs of electric cars and hybrids are much lower than those of gasoline engines. This is especially true in China, where the government keeps electricity prices low in order to keep their industry from emitting emissions. In Shanghai or Beijing, it is now half as expensive to charge the battery of an electric or hybrid car as it is to fill the tank with petrol.