Tesla’s Elon Musk calls BYD ‘highly competitive’

Tesla and now Elon Musk, in particular, have changed their opinion on BYD lately with the CEO now calling the Chinese company “highly competitive.”

As we have been reporting in recent months, Tesla and BYD have developed into unlikely partners lately.

There was a time when they didn’t take each other very seriously. There’s an infamous interview in which Elon Musk literally laughs at BYD’s electric vehicles, but they have since both emerged as EV powerhouses.

While they were mainly seen as competitors, the two companies started getting cozy together last year as Tesla started to buy battery cells from BYD. Tesla is believed to be using BYD’s new “Blade battery,” which is an LFP cell packaged in a long blade-like format.

Following recent rumors that Tesla didn’t renew its supply contract with BYD, Musk felt the need to clear things up and say that the relationship between Tesla and BYD is “positive.”

Now Musk went further. A Tesla fan brought up the previously mentioned interview on Twitter:

The CEO decided to clarify that he has since changed his opinion on BYD and now believes that its vehicles are “highly competitive”:

“That was many years ago. Their cars are highly competitive these days.”

BYD took over Tesla in China in overall sales volume last year, but it included plug-in hybrids while Tesla only sells all-electric vehicles.

However, this year, BYD is expected to beat Tesla in all-electric volumes as the former is now delivering about 100,000 all-electric vehicles per month.