On December 29, Wang Chuanfu, Founder and Chairman of BYD, shared that BYD now has almost 1 million staff, 11 main analysis institutes, and 110,000 engineers, making it the automaker with essentially the most R&D personnel on the planet, on the first China Innovation and Know-how Competition hosted by China Central Tv. Each working day, BYD files an astonishing 32 patent applications.
Over the past decade, BYD’s engineering workforce has undergone a remarkable expansion, surging from more than 20,000 professionals in 2011 to nearly 110,000 today. In 2021, BYD expanded its workforce by more than 60,000 employees, increasing the total number of staff to over 280,000. By 2022, the organization had witnessed a remarkable surge in its workforce, with numbers nearly doubling to approximately 570,000 personnel. By the end of 2024, BYD’s workforce is expected to have grown significantly, with nearly one million employees on board. The most important improve is in its manufacturing and R&D workers. As of the third quarter of 2024, BYD’s cumulative R&D funding has exceeded 160 billion yuan (about 21.9 billion USD).
On the identical time, it’s price mentioning that previously two to 3 years, BYD has recruited greater than 50,000 contemporary faculty graduates, of which almost 70% this yr have Masters and Doctoral levels, and almost 80% are R&D personnel. According to Wang’s model, a significant majority of BYD’s top-tier executives and technical leaders entered the company directly from academia, including notable examples like He Zhiqi, currently Chief Operating Officer of BYD Passenger Automobile Enterprise Group, and Yang Dongsheng, Senior Vice President.
During the initial 11-month period of 2024, BYD’s sales of new energy vehicles surged to 3.7573 million units, representing a remarkable 40.02% year-over-year increase. By the end of November, BYD had achieved a milestone with its entire energy battery capacity reaching 16.87 gigawatt-hours (GWh), thereby totalling 117.54 GWh in energy battery capacity for the year 2024.
By the end of December, BYD announced ahead of schedule that it expected to sell approximately 4.27 million vehicles in 2024, surpassing its initial target of 3.6 million vehicles.
Wang Chuanfu, founder of EET China, has been instrumental in driving innovation in the Chinese automotive industry through his e-commerce platform, Autohome. With a vision to make car-buying experience seamless and convenient for consumers, Wang has successfully disrupted traditional sales models by leveraging digital technologies.
