These statistics include plug-in hybrid gas cars (PHEV), of which BYD sell a lot, and Tesla do not make at all.
> "The company’s (BYD) success is driven by a dual strategy of producing both fully electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)..."
It matters enormously if you want to meaningfully compare EV production between two manufacturers, yes.
BEVs and PHEVs are not the same thing, and the size of batteries used in each is radically different.
BYD have a company policy of conflating their EV/PHEV numbers (their own made up term “new energy vehicles”) as it makes their “EV” numbers look great in misleading statistics like the one you linked.
Most people are not going to compare gas car production counts to Tesla, given the entire reason Tesla exists is to not produce gas cars. BYD still make gas cars - all PHEVs have a gas engine.
Tesla and BYD having different philosophies doesn't mean we need to adjust to Tesla to look at their numbers. If they're targeting the same job to be done (getting from A to B on an electric charge) they're in the same overall market.
We can subdivide on long range travel, trucks, lightweight mobility, cars with a US plug, or having a plugin architecture or not, but that's not what the article was about, nor what we're looking at here IMHO.
It’s a question of basic statistics; your original link does not compare apples to oranges.
When you measure something to compare, it’s helpful if it is the same.
This trick of conflating PHEV numbers is something most manufacturers don’t do, and BYD have been called out on in the past.
So many key players in EV (Tesla, rivian, lucid…) will never make a gas car - so of course BYD including over half a million gas cars in their “EV” stats makes for an unfair comparison across the industry.
https://evmarketsreports.com/byd-and-tesla-lead-the-global-e...
(except if you really were focusing on single model sales, but I'm not sure it's relevant)