Warren Buffett-Backed BYD To Ramp Up EV Foray, Aims To Sell 600,000 Battery-Operated Units In 2022

Warren Buffett-backed Chinese automaker $BYD Company ADR (BYDDY.US)$ is aiming to sell 600,000 battery-operated electric vehicles in 2022, cnEVpost reported on Monday, citing a local newspaper.

What Happened: The automaker also aims to sell between 500,000 to 600,000 plug-in hybrids next year.The automaker sold a total of 91,219 new energy vehicles in November, a more than three-fold jump, of which battery electric vehicles contributed 46,137 units and the rest was sales from plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

The automaker expects to grab a market share of about 25 percent in China. BYD currently has about 18% share in the NEV category.

BYD has already sold 509,838 new energy vehicles so far this year.

Why It Matters: BYD competes with a a number of electric vehicle makers in China including the global market leader $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ and local startups such as $NIO Inc (NIO.US)$ , $XPeng (XPEV.US)$ , $Li Auto (LI.US)$ .

Chinese electric automakers are now looking to expand overseas after quickly establishing a presence in home country. In August, BYD began shipping the electric sports utility vehicle Tang to Norway.

BYD, which started off as a battery maker, has been focusing on switching to a fully electric vehicle lineup and its current new energy vehicle portfolio consists of cars, buses, and trucks.