Elon Musk's Tesla to sink below Chinese giant BYD in electric car sales due to 'a lack of new models'

Many have speculated that this could help millions of drivers adapt to electric vehicles, especially with a rumoured price of around £20,000, although a Robotaxi is expected to be announced beforehand.

According to the report, hybrid vehicles are still the favoured powertrain across the world, although plug-ins are more expensive than petrol and diesel cars outside China.

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Michael Dean, Senior European Automotive Analyst at BI, said Tesla could be in trouble if they do not address the dominance of BYD around the world.

He added: "Tesla's original 50 per cent annual growth target is in tatters and despite new capacity and competitive pricing we see it losing its BEV global annual sales crown to BYD in 2024 on a lack of new models.

"BYD's lead may be short-lived with limited export opportunities beyond Asia and emerging markets, given US and EU import tariffs with 85 per cent of BEV sales in China versus one-third for Tesla."

This comes as BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, announced a deal to set up a manufacturing plant in Turkey worth $1billion (£780million) to expand its dominance across the world.

The new plant will be able to produce up to 150,000 vehicles a year, with manufacturing set to start by the end of 2026, Turkish news agency Anadolu reported.

It follows the controversial European Union decision to impose huge tariffs on Chinese manufacturers looking to export its cheaper electric vehicles to Europe.

Although BYD was on the receiving end of the smallest tariff, it will still need to account for a rate of 17.4 per cent when exporting to Europe, on top of a 10 per cent import duty.

Since Turkey is part of the EU Customs Union, it can avoid these costs and import at cheaper rates across Europe, BBC stated.

The report also warned that the US and EU election could impact policies and delay the phase-out of petrol and diesel vehicles.

Around 65 per cent of respondents to a BI survey disagreed with the ban on the sale of new internal combustion engines, currently set for 2035.

It is unclear whether the UK will reinstate the original 2030 car ban deadline, with Labour pledging to do so, although this could cause some issues with the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate.

Dean continued, saying: "Though VW is no longer a short-term challenger its next-gen platforms using acquired technology may provide a boost from 2026-27."

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Volkswagen currently has a leading 22 per cent EV market share in Europe, although they are significantly lacking in other areas as highlighted by the 13 global share and four per cent share in China.