BYD hits its best month of the year: 463,561 cars sold in September, almost 4 in 10 outside China
BYD's exports jumped 154% to 180,700 cars while its sales in China fell 13%. Battery-electric cars hit a new monthly record of 273,143.
BYD sold 463,561 electric and plug-in hybrid cars in September, up 17% from a year earlier and its best monthly result of 2026. The company published the figures on October 1. The growth isn't coming from China, though, but from exports: 180,700 cars went to other markets, almost 39% of the total. In other words, nearly 4 in 10 BYDs sold last month ended up outside China.
The numbers at a glance
| September 2026 | vs. September 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Total sales | 463,561 | +16.98% |
| Overseas (outside China) | 180,700 | +153.59% |
| China | 282,861 | −12.97% |
| Battery-electric (passenger cars) | 273,143 (record) | +33.21% |
| Plug-in hybrid (passenger cars) | 183,570 | −2.36% |
| Commercial vehicles | 6,848 | +113.33% |
The data comes from BYD, with calculations by CnEVPost. It's BYD's fifth straight month of year-on-year growth and its seventh straight month of growth over the previous month. Compared with August, sales rose 5.28%.
Exports keep the company growing
The gap between the two markets is huge. Outside China, BYD sold two and a half times as many cars as in September 2025, when it exported 71,256 units a month. At home, sales fell almost 13% year on year, although they rose 12.8% from August.
Over the first nine months the picture is even clearer: exports rose 92.66% to 1,342,960 cars, while sales in China fell 30.22% to 1,788,616. In total, BYD is still slightly behind last year (3,131,576 cars, −3.94%), but the gap is shrinking month by month.
Exports made up 38.98% of sales in September. That's a little below August (43.03%), but more than double the share of a year ago (17.98%). According to a September 7 Deutsche Bank note cited by CnEVPost, BYD has raised its 2026 overseas sales target to 1.9–2 million cars and is aiming for more than 2.5 million in 2027.
Battery-electric cars take the lead
The second key point in the report: battery-electric cars set a record, with 273,143 passenger cars sold in a single month. Plug-in hybrids dipped slightly year on year, to 183,570. Fully electric models made up almost 60% of BYD's passenger cars sold in September, up from 52% a year ago.
In the third quarter, BYD sold 1,323,065 cars, up 18.75% from the same period last year. That's its first year-on-year quarterly growth after four quarters of decline.
How far ahead of the rest of China
In CarNewsChina's ranking of Chinese electric and plug-in hybrid carmakers, BYD is far ahead of everyone else. In second place, Leapmotor delivered 105,656 cars in September, less than a quarter of BYD's total. Changan Nevo follows with 45,607 and Xpeng with 41,256.
The effect shows in Europe too. In France, for example, BYD registered about 3,848 cars in September according to Best Selling Cars Blog estimates, up 270% from a year earlier, and climbed to 11th place among brands.
What it means for drivers
For drivers in Europe, these numbers explain why you're seeing more BYDs on the road and more of their ads. China isn't growing the way exports are, so BYD is shifting its focus to markets like ours. For buyers, that competition is a good thing: more electric models at aggressive prices, and pressure on European brands to respond. What's worth watching is whether service and parts networks can keep up, because growth this fast is also a test of the after-sales side.
