Why BYD’s Wang Chuanfu Could Be China’s Version of Henry Ford
The billionaire, whose company is set to surpass Tesla as the world’s largest EV maker, is more focused than Elon Musk on producing cheap transportation for the masses.
Wang at a BYD dealership in São Paulo.
Photographer: Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg
At the headquarters of BYD Co. in Shenzhen, there’s a wall crammed floor to ceiling with about a thousand framed patents representing more than 30,000 innovations the electric-vehicle maker’s billionaire founder, Wang Chuanfu, and his army of engineers have devised.
The patents—for breakthroughs such as the low-cost lithium-iron-phosphate battery that’s also used by rivals including Ford, Tesla and even Toyota—are among the invisible assets turning Wang’s company into the world’s biggest EV maker. After selling 3 million electric and hybrid vehicles in 2023 and logging $85 billion in revenue, it’s on course to overtake Tesla Inc. this year. Now Wang is further disrupting China’s EV industry with cars costing less than $10,000, bringing affordable transport to the masses— once an Elon Musk goal.