On December 29, Wang Chuanfu, Founder and Chairman of BYD, shared that BYD now has nearly 1 million employees, 11 major research institutes, and 110,000 engineers, making it the automaker with the most R&D personnel in the world, at the first China Innovation and Technology Festival hosted by China Central Television. BYD applies for 32 patents on average per working day.
Data shows that since 2011, BYDβs number of engineers has grown from more than 20,000 to nearly 110,000. In 2021, BYD added more than 60,000 employees, bringing the total number to more than 280,000. In 2022, the number of employees doubled to about 570,000. In 2024, BYD has nearly one million employees. The largest increase is in its production and R&D staff. As of the third quarter of 2024, BYDβs cumulative R&D investment has exceeded 160 billion yuan (about 21.9 billion USD).
At the same time, it is worth pointing out that in the past two to three years, BYD has recruited more than 50,000 fresh college graduates, of which nearly 70% this year have Masters and Doctoral degrees, and nearly 80% are R&D personnel. According to Wang, most of BYDβs senior executives and technical leads joined the company as fresh graduates, including He Zhiqi, the current Chief Operating Officer of BYD Passenger Vehicle Business Group, and Yang Dongsheng, Senior Vice President.
In the first 11 months of 2024, BYDβs sales of new energy vehicles reached 3.7573 million units, an increase of 40.02% over the same period last year. Moreover, BYDβs total power battery installed capacity in November reached 16.87 GWh, bringing its cumulative power battery installed capacity in 2024 to 117.54 GWh.
As of December 30, BYD announced in advance that its annual sales in 2024 will be 4.27 million vehicles, exceeding the original target of 3.6 million vehicles.
Source: Wang Chuanfu, Eet China, Autohome
