Tesla, BYD and Mercedes-Benz: what sales, profit and brand valuations reveal

TL;DR. Attributable profit divided by group revenue in 2025 was about 4.0% for Tesla, 4.06% for BYD and 3.89% for Mercedes-Benz. The groups have different businesses, so these similar ratios do not mean they earn the same margin on cars. BYD delivered more electric vehicles than Tesla, while brand-value rankings placed Mercedes-Benz ahead of both. The comparison raises questions about perception without proving a financial effect of branding.

Later, we examine a public experiment with Grok about a possible BYD repositioning. The figures generated by the model are speculative scenarios, not validated financial estimates.

The Brand Analysis of the Week series opened with three Romanian bottled-water producers (that episode is in Romanian) and a question: why do buyers accept different prices for products in the same category? Here we examine three global car companies using their reports and two brand-value rankings.

In the UNRIVALS methodology, category ownership describes a strong association between a brand and an attribute in a particular audience’s mind. We propose Tesla and “electric”, BYD and “affordable”, and Mercedes-Benz and “luxury” as hypotheses. Without buyer research, we do not know how widely these associations are held.

For readers familiar with the dynamics of price wars in mature industries, this episode examines a possible alternative to competition based mainly on discounts, building a distinct reason to choose a brand.

The verdict

The three groups have attributable profit-to-revenue ratios near 4%. Deliveries and brand rankings, however, put them in a different order. Each figure measures something else.

Based on profit attributable to shareholders, the calculated ratios are 4.0% for Tesla, 4.06% for BYD and 3.89% for Mercedes-Benz. They describe the groups, not the profitability of each car model.

Profit from 2025 does not show why buyers choose one brand. That would require research into perception and purchase decisions.

Interbrand and Brand Finance estimates offer other views of the brands. They use their own methods and do not replace financial results or research into buyers’ associations.

The full analysis

2.1 The comparison table: the exact figures

The percentages use revenue for the whole group and profit attributable to shareholders, rather than figures for the passenger-car divisions. BYD also reports phone-component and assembly activities, Tesla includes energy and services, and Mercedes-Benz includes Vans and Financial Services. Similar group ratios therefore do not establish comparable profit per car. Sources appear in the annex.

2.2 Category ownership

In the UNRIVALS methodology, category ownership means a strong and relevant association between a brand and an idea in a particular audience’s mind. It is neither legal exclusivity nor a barrier that competitors cannot cross. A starting question for research is which word buyers think of first when they hear each name.

As hypotheses for analysis: Tesla, “electric”; BYD, “affordable”; Mercedes-Benz, “luxury”.

The proposed one-word associations are UNRIVALS interpretations that need testing with the intended audience. Profit-to-revenue ratios of 4.0%, 4.06% and 3.89% are close, but include different activities and do not demonstrate identical operating performance.

For a buyer seeking an electric car, spontaneous association with Tesla may influence the shortlist. That does not exclude comparing BYD on price, range, charging or other criteria.

For a buyer seeking luxury, the association with Mercedes may matter even if a Tesla model costs more. This is a perception hypothesis to test for the buyer segment and models being compared.

A distinct, relevant and credible association may help buyers choose a brand. This analysis does not measure its effect on sales or margins. A commercial decision would require testing those relationships in the relevant market.

2.3 The central attribute score

UNRIVALS evaluates the strength of a brand attribute on a 25-point grid with five dimensions: clarity, exclusivity, relevance to the purchase decision, resistance to copying and likely longevity. Each dimension is scored from 0 to 5.

In this internal grid, Tesla scores slightly lower than Mercedes-Benz on exclusivity because several brands already compete in the electric-car market. The score is the author’s judgment and should be checked against buyers’ responses.

In our assessment, Mercedes scores better on resistance to copying because of its association with luxury. The score expresses the author’s judgment without proving that a competitor could not develop a similar position.

BYD receives 14 points for the “affordable” association we propose as a hypothesis, without claiming the brand officially chose it. A rival’s lower price can weaken differentiation based solely on price. It does not automatically change buyers’ perceptions; the product, distribution and trust matter too.

2.4 Why one figure is not enough

Revenue, group profit and BEV deliveries answer different questions. A manufacturer may deliver more electric cars while having a different mix of businesses or costs from a rival.

Tesla delivered 9% fewer vehicles in 2025 than in 2024, while BYD’s BEV deliveries rose by 27.9%. Those changes describe volume, but cannot by themselves explain revenue, profit or buyer preferences.

No row in the table measures how much of a car purchase is due to the brand. That would require buyer research alongside comparable commercial data.

Brand rankings provide a separate estimate calculated using their own methods. A brand valuation is not a company’s stock-market value and cannot simply be added to its balance-sheet assets.

2.5 Who sells more and what that means

BYD delivered 2,254,714 electric vehicles in 2025, 37.8% more than Tesla (1,636,129). This is a volume lead in the year analysed, but does not establish which company earned more from selling cars.

In the Google Ads dataset cited in the annex, estimated monthly search volume for “byd” in Romania rose from 22,200 in August 2025 to 90,500 in July 2026, a 4.08-fold increase. This describes search interest, not sales, market share or why people search for the brand.

Competition based mainly on affordability may put pressure on margins when rivals cut prices. This is a commercial risk to assess alongside cost advantages and the product’s other benefits, without assuming that every increase in volume reduces margins.

We interpret Mercedes-Benz through its association with luxury. That association may influence buyers without preventing other luxury offers, and cannot be inferred from its group profit-to-revenue ratio.

The value of a distinct position lies in buyers’ reasons for choosing the brand and how hard rivals find it to reproduce those benefits. Researching those reasons is more useful than assuming Mercedes’ position makes competition impossible.

2.6 What brand-value rankings measure

Interbrand evaluates the value of global brands every year using a methodology that combines financial performance, the role of the brand in the purchase decision and the strength of the brand over the long term.

The Interbrand 2025 ranking places Mercedes-Benz 10th with a brand value of 50.1 billion USD, Tesla 25th with 29.5 billion USD and BYD 90th with 8.1 billion USD.

Brand Finance, which uses a different methodology and publishes its annual 2026 ranking, places Mercedes-Benz 2nd globally with 46.6 billion USD, Tesla 6th with 27.6 billion USD and BYD 11th with 17.3 billion USD.

Interbrand and Brand Finance put Mercedes-Benz ahead of Tesla and BYD, but estimate different values. Their rankings include assumptions about future revenue and the brand’s role, not just buyers’ direct answers.

Tesla ranks 25th in Interbrand’s 2025 list and 6th in Brand Finance’s 2026 automotive list. The places are not directly comparable: one list covers brands across many industries, while the other covers car brands.

In these figures, Mercedes-Benz has the highest estimated brand value and BYD the most BEV deliveries. This ordering does not mean that a brand valuation causes or explains delivery volume.

2.7 The BYD context: volume and brand perception

BYD grew rapidly and overtook Tesla in BEV volumes in 2025. It announced a passenger-car factory in Szeged, Hungary, for local production serving Europe. The production start date needs checking separately. In Romania, branded searches in the table increased more than fourfold between August 2025 and July 2026.

BYD delivered the most BEVs of the three groups, while Interbrand and Brand Finance assign it a lower brand value than the other two. The rankings do not tell us why a particular buyer chose or rejected a BYD model.

Our hypothesis is that BYD’s association with affordability may limit perceptions of other benefits in European markets. This analysis contains no survey establishing the associations held by buyers whose views formed before 2022. A position based mainly on price becomes vulnerable when a competitor offers a lower price.

China’s domestic market was important to BYD’s growth. Brand associations need researching separately in China and European markets, since buyers may interpret the same offer differently.

Volume growth should be accompanied by research into buyers’ reasons for choosing the brand. Without such research, the “affordable” association remains a hypothesis, not an explanation of BYD’s results.

2.8 The UNRIVALS move for BYD

If BYD were a UNRIVALS client seeking to strengthen its brand in Europe, we would start by checking what buyers associate with it. Growing volume and developing a distinct reason to choose the brand are not mutually exclusive.

Battery safety would be one attribute to research alongside price, charging, range and service quality. Its relevance to European buyers needs checking before it becomes a communication strategy.

Blade battery tests reported by BYD offer a starting point for a brand attribute related to safety. The source cited below comes from the manufacturer and does not prove superiority over every competitor. Before choosing this attribute, we would check the following criteria.

• Verification: which tests are documented, under which conditions, and what independent confirmation exists.
• Perceptual exclusivity: whether the audience already associates battery safety with another mass-market producer.
• Relevance: how much battery safety matters to the intended buyers in Germany, France and the Netherlands compared with other purchase criteria.
• Resistance to copying: how difficult it would be for competitors to reproduce the technical benefit and earn the same association among buyers.

As a working hypothesis, we would propose 12 months for a European safety campaign, test documentation buyers can understand and consistent messaging at each touchpoint. This is a proposed testing period, without a guarantee that the attribute will become established.

If research confirms the relevance of battery safety, BYD could add a reason to choose it beyond price. Effects on sales, margins and stock-market valuation would need measuring separately.

2.9 The public experiment: a communication hypothesis for BYD

On 1 October 2026, I tested a positioning idea phrased as millennia-long durability on X with Grok, the platform’s AI model. I asked how the model would interpret the change. The phrase is a communication metaphor, not a claim about battery life or a basis for valuing the company.

The hypothesis brings together two different things: a manufacturer’s technical claim about its battery and a cultural reference. The link between them would need testing with buyers before becoming a public message.

The first level is BYD’s technical claim. According to the manufacturer, the Blade battery exceeds 3,000 charge and discharge cycles, equivalent to 1.2 million kilometres under the stated conditions, and its surface temperature stays below 60°C in a nail-penetration test. Those results require scrutiny of the test method and do not promise the same lifespan for every car.

The second level is a cultural reference. Encyclopaedia Britannica dates the Yangshao culture, known in part for its painted pottery, to between 5000 and 3000 BCE. Its long history might inspire a story about continuity, but it is not evidence of battery performance.

In the creative proposal, the pottery’s colour and age serve as a metaphor for continuity. We have no evidence that buyers spontaneously make this association with BYD or that the metaphor changes their choice of car.

The left column presents our hypothesis about BYD’s current association, with the internal score from section 2.3. The right column proposes a direction to test, without showing that it would be exclusive or generate more revenue.

In the response posted on X on 1 October 2026, Grok described a possible shift from affordable volume to what it called longevity-premium. That is the model’s interpretation, not an observed buyer response.

The model also generated numerical jumps in prices and stock-market valuation. The exercise provides no method linking the proposed message to those outcomes, so we do not use them as estimates for BYD.

The useful question left by the exchange is what would need to be demonstrated before using such a story.

Grok describes the Yangshao story as a cultural association that is hard to copy and claims technical attributes can influence valuation more directly. These are the model’s interpretations, without a measured financial effect in the experiment.

In our proposal, the explanation begins with technical evidence, then introduces the 5,000-year history as a cultural association. The link between pottery and batteries is a communication idea. It does not prove battery lifespan or that only BYD could use Chinese heritage in its messaging.

A parallel between the Cucuteni culture of the Romanian region and China’s Yangshao culture might open a cultural conversation. It would require separate historical research and says nothing by itself about the commercial fit between two companies.

The theme is on the agenda of the forum “The Transformation of Global Industrial Ecosystems”, taking place on 20 October 2026 in Sibiu, where UNRIVALS is the business and strategy audit partner.

A useful exercise for a manufacturer is to write down, in two lines, what benefit it can demonstrate technically and what context makes that benefit relevant to a buyer. A story, place or craft can support communication when it has a real link to the offer.

If the second line stays empty, check which other resources support the difference, such as technology, relationships or processes that are hard to reproduce. A historical story is one possible anchor, without being a prerequisite for a lasting advantage.

Provenance annex

The table identifies the source or calculation for each figure used above. It follows the order of first appearance in the text.

Frequently asked questions

What do BYD and Tesla deliveries tell us about their brands?

BYD delivered more battery-electric vehicles in 2025. That figure measures volume, not spontaneous brand preference or profit per car.

Associating Tesla with “electric” and BYD with “affordable” is an editorial hypothesis. To test it, we would need to ask relevant buyers and examine their actual reasons for choosing a car.

Interbrand and Brand Finance estimate brand values using their own methods. Their rankings do not turn a difference in deliveries directly into a difference in brand value.

What is category ownership and how is it measured?

Category ownership describes a strong association between a brand and a category or attribute in the mind of a defined audience.

A research question might be: “Which brand comes to mind first when you hear the word ‘electric’?” Repeated answers from a relevant sample show the strength of the association, not exclusive or permanent ownership.

Spontaneous-response surveys can be supplemented by search analysis and research into purchase motives. Each measures a different aspect of the decision.

Why do Interbrand and Brand Finance assign different values to the same brand?

Interbrand and Brand Finance use different methods, assumptions and time periods. The figures in this article are their published estimates, not prices at which the brands were sold separately.

Mercedes-Benz ranks highest among these three brands in both rankings used here. That order alone does not explain why a buyer chooses a particular model.

Brand value is not equivalent to the stock-market value of the whole company.

Can BYD become a premium brand in Europe?

It is possible, but this article has no study of European buyers showing what they currently associate with BYD or what they would accept from a premium offer.

Battery safety, charging, range and service experience are possible avenues for research. BYD could sell both accessible and premium models; those aims need not be mutually exclusive.

Before changing its positioning, BYD would need to test demand, competitors, product fit and delivery capability in each segment. We do not have data to estimate a transition period here.

What does the Grok experiment show about BYD?

It shows how a communication hypothesis might connect a manufacturer’s technical claim to a cultural reference. It does not show that buyers make that association or that it would raise prices or the company’s value.

The financial figures generated by Grok were not validated with a reproducible model. Battery tests must be assessed separately from the story about Yangshao culture.

What relevance does this analysis have for a brand from Romania?

For a Romanian producer, the useful question is which benefits can justify choosing it beyond price. The BYD comparison offers a way to research those reasons, not a formula for financial valuation.

Our recommendation is to verify and communicate a relevant benefit supported by resources that are hard to reproduce. This may reduce reliance on discounts without eliminating comparison between offers.

The analysis in the previous episode of this series, on Aqua Carpatica, Borsec and Dorna, shows the same mechanism applied to the bottled-water industry in Romania.

To start assessing how your company is perceived, you can request a diagnostic.

This is an independent analysis using company reports, public brand rankings, Google Ads search-volume estimates and a UNRIVALS editorial assessment. Financial figures were checked against company publications; sources and dates are listed in the annex. None of the companies analysed is a UNRIVALS client or took part in preparing this analysis.

Section 2.9, on the public BYD rebranding experiment, and the corresponding rows in the annex were added on 2 October 2026.

Marketing Audit · b2b-strategy.ro