BEV companies are not competing against each other for BEV customers, they are competing against ICE mfgs for new BEV owners.
BYD is competing for traditional ICE compact coupes and sedans which are low margin, low cost vehicles.
Tesla is competing for traditional ICE intermediate and full size sedan and SUVs that are high margin and premium pricing. They don't compete against each other.
The pool of new BEV customers is growing faster than people can count. Any EV mfg that is not selling on a waiting list without advertising should do themselves a favor and just shut down, they are done. Global BEV market share is still less than 10% of all vehicle sales. All BEV mfg can grow BEV sales at 50% per year for a number of years before reaching a saturation point. The catch is that traditional mfg are not necessarily growing top or bottom line at 50% per year because they are just swapping ICE owners with BEV owners.
I'm confused now. Please help.
1) Tesla is not competing against a legacy and now pure EV company because most of BYD's cars are not semi/luxury cars.
2) Tesla is competing against legacy ICE car companies that are (mostly) still selling ICE cars.
It doesn't seem like Ford, GM, Stellantis, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan meet both rules. They have some semi/luxury cars but no one would call them a premium car manufacturer. Would you agree?
I would not consider the M3/MY premium vehicles. They are premium priced and compete with the intermediate ICE market. A typical first-time tesla buyer has never purchased a car for more than 40k.
Tesla has already taken a lot of the buyers of the luxury market like BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc with both S/3/X/Y models and will continue to take more, but the Tesla logarithmic volume increase is coming from the intermediate/full size legacy auto.
Tesla is taking historic Ford Explorer and Taurus buyers
Tesla is taking historic Chev Traverse and Impala buyers
Tesla is taking historic Toyota Highlander and Camry buyers
Tesla is taking historic Honda CRV and Accord buyers, I know someone that went from a Civic to a tesla and the Civic was the most expensive car they had ever purchased.
Tesla is taking Nissan Murano and Maxima buyers
They are getting buyers from the smaller and larger versions of these mfg offerings too.
This is about how fast BEV mfg overall can scale, not about competition. Every day more BEV buyers will be in line waiting for their opportunity to get out of their ICE vehicle into a BEV. Tesla only needs to convert about 1 to 2 out of ten of these transitioners through the saturation period over the next ten years or so. Now if and when these BYD buyers are ready for an intermediate or full-size vehicle, Tesla will be ready for them when they are ready.
I wish great success to BYD and expect they will surpass Tesla in unit BEV volume pretty soon, that might be because sub-compacts are higher volume vehicles worldwide than intermediate/full size like Tesla plays in. But that doesn't change anything for either of them, they are each meeting a need in the market to convert ICE drivers to BEV. Fortunately for BYD, they are growing the overall company faster than the ICE sales are declining. For the rest of legacy auto, it remains to be seen whether they can grow BEV as fast as ICE declines. It is not looking good for most of them.
Comparing a BYD BEV against Tesla is like comparing a GEO Metro with a Chevy Malibu. They are two different markets of buyers, both are necessary, but both did not provide the same profitability to the company when GEO was still around. No one would say these two models are competing with each other for buyers. If and when BYD comes to the US, they will be stealing from the sub-compact legacy ICE market of buyers. As I said, it is all about converting ICE buyers. If Tesla comes out of this in 10 years with 10-20%(1 to 2 out of ten ICE conversions to BEV) market share will make them the largest by a significant amount. Toyota is the largest today with ~10% market share globally.