Liam Denning, Columnist

China’s BYD Cemented Its Lead on Tesla in Five Minutes

The Chinese EV-maker shocked the world with a fast charger, while the US is still figuring out if EVs are too woke.

March 18, 2025 at 8:29 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

In the driver’s seat.
Photographer: Hector Retamal/AFP

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Sometimes a chart is just a chart. Sometimes, when you’re looking at Tesla Inc. and BYD Co. Ltd. in early 2025, it’s a striking squiggly metaphor.

Tesla, the biggest US electric vehicle maker, has shocked the world this year with its overt politicization and slumping sales and stock price. BYD, its great Chinese rival, just shocked the world by announcing its newest model can recharge in five minutes. The symbolism, capturing the lead that China has taken in EVs compared with a US still fighting with itself about the relative wokeness of EVs, could hardly be clearer.