BYD Co. expects third-quarter profit to rise at least 67% on the back of record electric vehicle sales.

Third-quarter net income will come in as high as 11.5 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion), compared with 5.7 billion yuan a year earlier, the Warren Buffett-backed maker of electric vehicles and batteries said in an exchange filing late Tuesday.

Profits in the nine months ended Sept. 30 may be between 20.5 billion yuan to 22.5 billion yuan, exceeding net income for all of 2022 of 16.6 billion yuan.

Sales volume of new-energy vehicles reached a new high, “despite the increasingly intensified competition in the automobile industry in the third quarter,” BYD said.

Earlier this month, BYD said its total vehicle sales nearly doubled in the January-September period to 2.08 million vehicles.

One of the reasons underpinning BYD’s success is the fact it also makes the batteries that power its electric and hybrid cars, as well as some of the semiconductor chips that go in them.

That added manufacturing prowess allows BYD greater control over parts of the supply chain, meaning it performs better in controlling costs.

In the three months to Sept. 30, BYD managed to sell almost as many fully electric vehicles as Tesla Inc., falling just 3,456 vehicles short of superseding the U.S. automaker run by Elon Musk.

Including hybrids, BYD sold a total 822,094 vehicles for another record quarter, helping to cement its lead as China’s best-selling car brand.

BYD’s strength comes as sales growth of new-energy cars in China more broadly is slowing.

Retail sales of new-energy vehicles in the world’s biggest auto market rose 22.1% from a year earlier to 746,000 units in September, data from the Passenger Car Association (PCA) showed last week.

But as consumers in China rein in spending, more new-energy passenger cars are being exported.

China-based automakers shipped 91,000 clean vehicles abroad in September, including pure-electric and plug-in hybrids, an increase of 107% from a year earlier, the PCA data showed. (SD-Agencies)