Stella Li has spent three decades at BYD. She joined when the company operated from a modest two-room apartment in southern China. One room served as the office. The other handled finance. The founder, Wang Chuanfu, showed her an old building outside. Inside, a red carpet awaited. Visitors removed their shoes to keep the space spotless. That attention to detail convinced her. Chuanfu possessed a grand vision. Li bought in.
Today she serves as BYD’s executive vice president. She also holds the title of CEO of BYD Americas. Her role centers on global expansion. She spends about 70 percent of her time traveling. Officials. Local hires. Pricing decisions tailored to each country. Product strategy shaped on the ground. Colleagues sometimes call the international tours “The Stella Show.” In Paris, she unveiled a luxury model at the Opera House. Ballerinas and opera singers flanked the event. The message? BYD plays in premium segments now.
Last week Wang Chuanfu told shareholders the company aims to become the world’s largest automaker within five years. Fortune reported the declaration. Overseas sales and production growth form a central pillar of that goal. Li has built the overseas operation from nearly nothing. BYD Europe dates to 1998. Early moves reached the U.S. and Japan. The contrast with those rented factory floors could not be sharper.
BYD sold 4.27 million vehicles globally in 2024. It ranked fourth among car manufacturers. The next year it moved 4.6 million new-energy vehicles. That made it the top pure-EV seller worldwide. Tesla lost the crown. International sales more than doubled in 2025 to just over one million units. Markets in Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America delivered higher prices. They helped counter the brutal price competition back home. In May alone, BYD moved more than 160,000 vehicles abroad. An 80 percent jump from the prior year. The target for 2026 sits at 1.5 million exported units.
Yet pressure mounts in China. The domestic EV market turned intensely competitive. Price wars eroded margins. BYD recorded its first annual profit decline in four years during 2025. The drop reached 19 percent. Net profit in early 2026 fell by more than half. Sales growth slowed. Geely even overtook the company briefly in some domestic rankings. Li acknowledges the environment. “The Chinese market is very tough competition,” she said in the Fortune interview. No leading brand has held more than a mid-teens share for long, she noted. BYD’s own position will likely fluctuate.
Optimism persists on the technology front. Li told CNBC this month that China’s EV penetration could reach close to 80 percent soon. “With all the innovation technology introduced to the market, China’s market very quickly will push to … close to 80% in EV penetration,” she said. CNBC carried the forecast. Gas car sales plunged 39 percent in May. Higher fuel costs played a role. Demand for BYD models at home reportedly runs double current production capacity. Fast-charging technology drives part of that interest. The system can deliver a 70 percent charge in five minutes. The second-generation Blade battery offers strong efficiency and cost performance. Li downplayed immediate hype around solid-state batteries in a June interview with Auto Express. The existing tech still delivers a superior balance for now.
Europe represents a major focus. BYD plans local production of 75 percent of the cars it sells there. A new factory in Hungary ranks as the top priority. Assembly begins in the fourth quarter of 2026. The site carries a multi-billion-euro investment. Li recently told reporters the company seeks a second European plant. It prefers to acquire an existing facility rather than build from scratch. “There is no time to start a plant from zero today,” she explained, according to reports in Automotive News and other outlets. Spain and southern locations have surfaced in discussions. A €1.8 billion plan funds flash-charging stations across the continent. Two to three hundred installations could appear by mid-2026. Such infrastructure removes a key obstacle for buyers. “It’s like a wake-up call for the people who never touch EV,” Li told CNN in April.
Local manufacturing helps blunt trade tensions. The EU has investigated Chinese EV subsidies. Tariffs and political scrutiny complicate matters. Labor rights allegations surfaced at the Hungary site. China Labor Watch raised claims of excessive overtime, seven-day weeks and poor conditions for migrant workers. BYD rejected the accusations. It stressed compliance with local and European rules. Similar issues arose in Brazil. Prosecutors alleged conditions akin to slavery at contractor sites. The company settled without admitting fault. It described some claims as culturally biased. Li frames these challenges as typical for a newcomer. “When you’re new, people don’t trust you,” she said. “You just have to be transparent and show the facts.”
The U.S. market stays off limits for now. Steep tariffs. Political resistance. A recent Pentagon designation listed BYD among firms tied to China’s military. The label carries symbolic weight. It warns investors and may foreshadow further restrictions. Li remains unfazed. “Without the US market, BYD still will be the leading position,” she told CNN. The company has “no future plan” for American sales at present. Global ambitions do not hinge on one country. “Not only the Chinese market – the global market, is our target,” she added.
Li’s own story adds depth. She emerged as one of the first prominent female executives in a male-dominated industry. Skepticism greeted her early on. Boardrooms in Europe sometimes featured towering male counterparts. A pivotal 2000 speech in Paris changed perceptions. China would soon dominate mobile phones and their batteries, she argued. The presentation landed like “a nuclear bomb” in a Western-dominated field. Nokia and Motorola became customers. Those deals supported BYD’s 2002 Hong Kong IPO. Li later earned recognition as the first woman named World Car Person of the Year in 2025. Gender concerns faded once results appeared. “Once you start the conversation and you talk about the technology… When you deliver and make things happen, gender is no longer important,” she recalled.
Vertical integration gives BYD structural advantages. The company makes roughly 80 percent of its Tier-1 components in-house. That compares with about 37 percent for Tesla. Lower R&D overhead and cheaper engineering talent widen the gap further. A Rhodium Group analysis found subsidies explain only a small slice of BYD’s cost edge. These operational strengths matter more than tariffs alone.
Software and artificial intelligence now define the next battleground. Advanced driver-assistance systems appear in more models. BYD expanded insurance coverage for L2+ features in May. The move could lift customer usage to 95 percent. The company developed its own driver-assist chip yet still relies heavily on Nvidia’s hardware. Roughly 7,000 engineers focus on semiconductors. That forms just a sliver of the firm’s nearly 870,000 employees. Li sees driver assistance as the coming arena of competition.
Beyond vehicles, robotics beckons. Humanoid machines could staff production lines and eventually enter homes. Li compares the current state to EVs years ago. Software intelligence advances rapidly. Hardware dexterity lags. “It’s not the brain,” she said of the gap. “It’s the body.” Vertical integration in batteries, chips and components positions BYD to close that divide. A few more years of engineering effort could make the difference. The pursuit echoes Tesla’s path. Collision with an old rival seems likely if robotics scales.
Li continues to log the miles. Roadshows. Government meetings. Factory openings. She pushes BYD to become a local brand in each market rather than a foreign exporter. That shift demands more than sales. It requires trust, compliance and adaptation. Challenges abound. Labor scrutiny. Regulatory barriers. Fierce Chinese competition. Profit squeezes. Still, the numbers tell a story of ascent. From battery supplier to global EV leader. From rented floors to luxury launches at the Paris Opera. The five-year goal of becoming the largest automaker sounds bold. Given the track record, few dismiss it outright.
Recent signals reinforce momentum. Overseas sales keep climbing. Domestic EV adoption accelerates as gasoline falters. Flash charging and local plants address practical barriers in Europe. AI features differentiate products. And Li shows no sign of slowing her travel schedule. The company she helped shape now sets its sights on the very top of the global auto industry. Observers will watch whether execution matches the rhetoric. So far, Stella Li has delivered.
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