BYD Auto is owned by BYD, since 2003.
BYD entered the car business by buying a carmaker outright.
Where it sits
Two levels. A figure marks a company boundary crossed; a word means the figure was never published.
BYD Auto
23 years, one owner
The year is coloured by whoever held it at the time.
- 2003 BYD entered the car business by buying a carmaker outright. Its own corporate timeline records 「2003年1月22日，收购西安秦川汽车有限责任公司（现「比亚迪汽车有限公司」）」 — "on 22 January 2003, acquired Xi'an Qinchuan Automobile Co., Ltd (now 'BYD Auto Co., Ltd')" — and BYD has dated the motor business from that year ever since: the 2011 annual report opens its car section 「集团自2003年进入汽车业务以来，凭借独具特色的垂直整合的经营模式打造出可持续的高性价比优势」, "since the group entered the automobile business in 2003 it has built a sustainable value advantage on its distinctive vertically integrated model", and calls 比亚迪汽车有限公司 「设立于西安市的生产性中外合资企业」, a manufacturing Sino-foreign joint venture established in Xi'an, then 99% held by BYD. The company is still there: BYD's 2025 interests-in-subsidiaries table lists 比亚迪汽车有限公司 under 「非同一控制下企业合并取得的子公司」 — subsidiaries obtained in a business combination not under common control — registered in Xi'an with share capital of RMB 4,381,313,131 and 99.00% directly held.
BYD
3 marques
A battery maker that bought its way into cars with a plant in Xi'an and has grown every badge it sells from the inside since, from the mass-market names up to the million-yuan flagship. Its founder is the controlling shareholder in his own name, so no company sits above the group.