BYD has more than 1.02 million employees, surpassing the combined total of Toyota, General Motors, Ford and Tesla.

Over the century-long history of the automotive industry, the organizational scale of industry giants has always been a critical metric for measuring enterprise strength. However, this metric has been completely rewritten by a Chinese automaker.

It is reported that on October 29, Wang Chuanfu, Chairman of BYD, publicly disclosed data showing that BYD's total number of employees has now exceeded 1.02 million.

What does this figure actually mean?

For comparison, as of the end of March 2026, Toyota, the world's top seller of automobiles, has 390,000 employees, Ford has about 169,000, General Motors around 156,000, and Tesla only has 134,000 employees in its latest 10-K report. Counting the four commonly used benchmark enterprises of Toyota, Ford, General Motors and Tesla, their total number of employees is about 851,000.

In other words, the employee scale of BYD alone has exceeded the sum of the above four multinational automakers, with a surplus of about 170,000 people.

In this era where automation, AI and robots are constantly touting the "unmanned factory", why is BYD still frantically expanding its "human army"? Behind the 1.02 million employees lies not only the underlying code for BYD's global dominance, but also the most authentic background of China's manufacturing industry.

The Ultimate of Vertical Integration: The "Super Closed Loop" of 1.02 Million Employees

To understand the composition of these 1.02 million employees, we must first grasp BYD's business logic.

Wang Chuanfu has emphasized on many public occasions that BYD's core moat is "vertical integration". Under this logic, BYD is not just an assembly plant: it produces batteries independently, manufactures chips (semiconductors) on its own, develops motors by itself, and even does electronics OEM in-house. This model of full industrial chain self-manufacturing means that it must have an extremely large base of industrial workers.

According to Wang Chuanfu's disclosure, of the 1.02 million employees, about 960,000 are based in China, and 60,000 are overseas. This huge base covers all business segments of BYD:

BYD Electronics, the controlling OEM: as of the end of 2025, this segment alone has about 165,000 employees. It is not only an important player in the global consumer electronics OEM field (undertaking a large number of OEM orders for mobile phones and smart hardware), but also the core manufacturing backing for BYD Auto's intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving domain controllers. Batteries, motors, energy storage and rail transit: these heavy-asset businesses other than complete vehicle manufacturing also require a huge number of engineers and industrial workers. From all major bases of Fudi Battery to the R&D and manufacturing of SkyRail and SkyShuttle, BYD's tentacles extend to every corner of the new energy sector. At the moment when the global supply chain is turbulent and geopolitical frictions keep emerging, BYD's "full-stack self-research + self-manufacturing" model has demonstrated extremely impressive risk resistance and cost control capabilities. When other automakers are forced to suspend production due to chip shortages and battery shortages, BYD's assembly lines can still keep running. These 1.02 million employees are not only the industrial moat built by Wang Chuanfu, but also the epitome of China's new energy vehicle industrial chain moving towards independence. It has achieved the most efficient closed loop in the most seemingly cumbersome way.

From Layoffs to Rapid Expansion: The Confidence to Add 100,000 New Employees in Four Months

It is worth noting that the data of 1.02 million employees does not grow smoothly all the way, and it has experienced drastic organizational structure adjustment and strategic focus shift behind it.

Data shows that as of the end of 2025, the number of BYD's employees was about 869,600, a decrease of about 99,000 compared with the end of 2024. That round of personnel optimization was mainly concentrated in manufacturing positions, reflecting the cost pressure in the early stage of the domestic market price war at that time. According to data from S&P Global, the total number of employees rebounded to 911,900 by the end of June 2026. And by October, this figure directly exceeded 1.02 million.

In just four months, the number of BYD's employees surged by more than 100,000.

This employment rhythm of "sudden brake" followed by "full throttle" reflects the dual outbreak of production capacity and overseas expansion that BYD is facing in 2026.

On the one hand, BYD has carried out in-depth automation upgrading of its domestic production lines, eliminating some inefficient manual manufacturing positions by introducing a large number of industrial robots; on the other hand, with the full bloom of overseas markets, BYD has to frantically expand its workforce. Data shows that in the first nine months of 2026, BYD sold a total of about 3.132 million automobiles. Although domestic sales decreased slightly by 3.9% year-on-year affected by the macro economy and the extremely fierce price war, overseas sales reached an astonishing about 1.343 million units, a year-on-year surge of 92.7%.

The rapid growth of overseas markets means that BYD needs a large number of overseas factory construction teams, cross-border sales teams, localized after-sales teams, and extremely complex global supply chain management talents. A considerable part of the 100,000 newly added employees are building the infrastructure for BYD's "global great voyage". From the commissioning of the factory in Rayong, Thailand, to the promotion of factory construction in Brazil, Hungary, Uzbekistan and other regions, the landing of every overseas base requires tens of thousands of manpower to fill the posts. This is not only the export of products, but also the export of the entire industrial system and organizational capabilities.

120,000 Engineers: From "Human Sea Tactics" to "Talent Density"

If nearly a million workers on the assembly line support BYD's today, then the density of R&D personnel determines BYD's tomorrow.

Among the 1.02 million employees, the most striking figure is 120,000 R&D engineers.

These 120,000 people are distributed in core R&D fields such as batteries, motors, electronic control systems and semiconductors. This scale is in the very top echelon of global enterprise R&D teams, which is equivalent to the total employee size of many large technology companies. In the intelligent competition (intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit) where the new energy vehicle industry enters the second half, these 120,000 engineers are the core asset for BYD to compete head-to-head with Tesla and Huawei-backed automakers.

In the past, the outside world's stereotype of BYD was "cost-effectiveness" and "manufacturing capability". But now, from the Blade Battery, the e-Platform 4.0 technology platform, to the Cloud Intelligent Body Control System, and the recently actively deployed world model and advanced assisted driving, BYD is using the R&D investment of these 120,000 people to complete the identity transition from a "manufacturing giant" to a "technology giant".

Especially in the field of intelligent driving, BYD is launching a "people's war". Through its huge team of engineers, BYD is trying to deploy high-level intelligent driving functions to models priced at the 100,000-yuan level, and use massive data to feed back algorithm iteration. This tactic of "human sea + data" is exactly what other automakers with lean teams cannot replicate.

Hidden Worries of the Million-Strong Army: The Game Between Slightly Decreasing Sales and Profit Margin

However, the huge organization of 1.02 million people also means an extremely heavy financial burden. For any enterprise, managing an organization of 100,000 people and managing an organization of one million people are completely challenges of two different dimensions.

In the first three quarters of 2026, BYD's sales decreased by 3.9% year-on-year. While sales decreased slightly, the number of employees soared to over one million, which means that per capita output and profit margin are facing huge tests. To support 1.02 million employees (plus related social security, benefits, and production line depreciation), the rigid cost to be paid every year is an astronomical figure.

At present, the domestic new energy vehicle market has entered an extremely cruel stock game stage. Price wars emerge one after another, and all automakers are exchanging price cuts for market share. Although BYD can withstand the price war by virtue of vertical integration, if the growth rate of the overseas market slows down at a certain time node, or global trade barriers further intensify (such as the EU imposing an additional 17% countervailing duty on BYD's pure electric models, superimposed with a 10% basic tariff), this million-strong army can easily become a heavy burden dragging down the financial statement profits.

This is also why BYD must maintain a high degree of flexibility in its personnel strategy, and hedge against market cycles through frequent employment adjustments and automation upgrades. The employment scale of one million people not only tests the enterprise's financial statements, but also tests its huge management efficiency, corporate culture construction and risk resistance capability.

Conclusion

BYD with 1.02 million employees is an extremely grand and complex business sample.

It represents the peak state achieved by China's manufacturing industry in the global new energy transformation, relying on extreme engineering efficiency, huge industrial chain supporting facilities and demographic dividend. With the violent aesthetics of vertical integration, it has surpassed the sum of the above four multinational automakers in terms of employee scale, and even staged a rapid rise of "China's smart manufacturing" in overseas markets.

But being huge is not equal to being great.

For Wang Chuanfu, to efficiently coordinate the physical strength of 1.02 million people and the intelligence of 120,000 engineers, improve the per capita profit margin while maintaining the scale advantage, and successfully cross the geopolitical barriers of globalization, is the final big exam for BYD to truly become a world-class super enterprise. This is not only related to BYD's own destiny, but also related to the confidence and resilience of China's automotive industry when moving towards the top of the global value chain. This is a marathon with no retreat.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Tech Business", the author is Tech Business, and it is published with authorization from 36Kr.