Few outside of China had heard of any of the country’s domestic carmakers until Geely broke through in the 2010s. Domestically, cars from Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. were among the nation’s bestselling. And globally, the empire of Geely and its billionaire founder, Li Shufu, spanned stakes in Sweden’s Volvo, Germany’s Mercedes-Benz and Malaysia’s Proton, as well as a partnership with France’s Renault. Geely is best known for the acquisition of Volvo Cars in 2010 and its remarkable turnaround. This success showed for the first time that a Chinese manufacturer could run an international brand as well as its European or American peers.
But in only two short years, by 2023 the automaker was eclipsed by BYD Co., the upstart that zoomed past Geely to become the world’s largest seller of electrified vehicles—and the largest car brand in China. BYD wasn’t even among the top 10 largest producers by shipments in the country as recently as 2021, when state-owned manufacturers’ joint ventures with Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co. topped the list, followed by Geely, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed. Then the country’s embrace of EVs changed everything.
