Chinese Tesla Rival Sets Shares Record After Charging Innovation Turns Heads
Hong Kong stocks have risen to a three-year high, driven by a strong showing for BYD, which has made a major EV announcement.
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BYD BYDDY (HK:1211) shares set a record high close as China’s largest electric-vehicle maker unveiled an upgraded charging system that it says can power a vehicle in much the same time as a gasoline model.
BYD is starting pre-sales today on the Tang L and Han L EV models, which use the company’s “Super e-Platform,” which it says supports 10C charging. The Tang, an SUV, and the Han, a sedan, start at C¥270,000 ($37,400), and are flagship models for a company that sells cars as cheaply as the $10,000 Seagull.
The 10C designation means that the battery can be fully charged in one-tenth of an hour, or six minutes. The company says those models can support a peak charging power of 1 megawatt, which would be twice as fast as the 500 kilowatt charging speeds on Tesla’s Superchargers
Five-Minute Charge?
BYD says its supercharger can deliver 2 kilometers of range per second, or 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) in five minutes. Chairman and founder Wang Chuanfu unveiled the new chargers and vehicle models at a presentation at the company’s Shenzhen headquarters, just across the mainland border from me here in Hong Kong.
I see that the five-minute charge is grabbing most of the attention — an easier figure to cite than the six-minute full charge. But the devil will be in the details of the rollout.
BYD says it will build out more than 4,000 of the charging stations across China. But it didn’t provide any timeline or capital expenditure that such an expansion would require.
The buildout will be a big part of the challenge. Tesla has a network of some 65,000 Superchargers globally, which can power a 200-mile charge in 15 minutes.
Better Than a Combustion Engine?
Nomura notes that BYD is challenging conventional cars with a cheaper sales price and, now, similar range performance. It’s the third front for the company, which also promises widespread adoption of its God’s Eye intelligent-driving system, and a partnership with drone giant DJI to introduce the Lingyuan system that would integrate a drone into a vehicle.
BYD shares opened up 6.0% and ended Tuesday trade up 4.1% in Hong Kong, meaning they are now up 55.5% so far this year.
But while BYD may be grabbing the headlines today, it’s just one of many consumer-linked plays that have been gaining in Hong Kong trade.
BYD sits at the confluence of technology and consumer plays. Both categories of company have seen their shares buoyed by Beijing’s pledge to stimulate consumer spending.
Hong Kong EV Makers Higher as a Whole
China’s other listed EV makers also advanced on Tuesday, and have performed well this year. Nio NIO (HK:9866) led the way with an 8.9% advance on Tuesday, while Li Auto LI (HK:2015) jumped 6.8%. XPeng XPEV (HK:9868) was a relative laggard, up 1.4%.
I should note that I do hold a position in BYD, as well as Li Auto and Xpeng. But I’ve sold out of Nio, which, despite today’s showing, appears to be losing ground competitively.
China is offering subsidies to support EV purchases, with Beijing promising a dedicated package of actions to spur consumption for the whole economy. But a meeting of several official bodies on Sunday led to the release on Monday of a 30-point plan that pledges to target eight key areas, without attaching any specific spending figures.
“The consumption stimulus package is largely in line with the capital market’s expectation, we believe,” Nomura’s China economics team wrote in a note. “There has been no major incremental new policy from the latest consumption-stimulus package.”
Still, investors are betting that the central government’s backing will support consumer plays.
Hang Seng Tech Leads the Way
Hong Kong’s market as a whole climbed to a three-year peak, and is clawing back what was frequently the world’s worst performance among major indexes before the market started to rally last September.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index is now up 29.4% for the year. The index, capturing the performance of China-based businesses listed in Hong Kong, rose 2.8% today.
The tech sector’s gains are magnified on the upside, but the risks are also multiplied should the index turn for the worse.
The Hang Seng Tech Index jumped 4.0% on Tuesday, taking its performance this year to 36.6%.
As I've noted in my recent columns , you can play the tech index specifically via the KraneShares Hang Seng Tech Index ETF KTEC. That’s up 39.6% in U.S. trading.
An initial rally heading into this year gave way as investors fretted about the impact of the incoming Trump administration. But investors have put any concern about tariffs behind them, with the extra 20% duties on Chinese goods far better than the 60% tariffs Trump championed on the campaign trail.
The Hang Seng as a whole, designed as a Dow-like index to capture the broader performance in Hong Kong, rose 2.5% today, and is now up 26.1% in 2025.
Pessimism about Trump 2.0 saw the Hong Kong market dip to a low point on January 13. Since then, Hong Kong stocks are up 31.1%.
Better-Than-Expected Retail Sales
China has just released better-than-expected figures for the first two months of the year, with retail sales coming in at 4.0%, ahead of the 3.8% expected by economists. Separately, official data show e-commerce for February accelerated 5.0%, all the figures compared with last year.
Baidu shares led today’s gains, up 12.2% after the company released two artificial intelligence models over the weekend that it says rival the performance of DeepSeek.
But we also saw a strong showing for e-commerce plays such as Alibaba Group Holding BABA (HK:9988), up 5.8%, and rival JD.com JD (HK:9618), up 5.3%.
Decidedly non-tech names like China Resources Beer CRHKY (HK:0291), up 4.4% today and 17.5% so far this year, show the Hong Kong rally extends well beyond the tech sector.
There was also a solid showing for straight-up consumption plays such as sports-brand holding company Anta Sports Products ANPDY (HK:2020), up 2.8% today and 33.8% in 2025.
At the time of publication, McMillan was long BYD, LI and XPEV.
