Tesla CEO Elon Musk Pushes Back After Ford CEO Calls BYD Best EV Rival — Points To Key 'Limiting Factor' In China

• Tesla continues to prepare for a supervised FSD rollout in China, with full approval potentially arriving this year.
• Over the weekend, Tesla expanded unsupervised Robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston.
• Even as competition from BYD, Xiaomi and Huawei intensifies in China’s EV market, Tesla regained the global battery-electric vehicle delivery lead in Q1.

Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk has responded to Ford CEO Jim Farley's remarks about viewing Chinese automaker BYD as a more serious rival than Tesla, saying there was just one key hurdle standing in the American EV maker's way.

Meanwhile, Tesla shares are on track for their first positive month of the year, lifted by easing fears of an escalating U.S.-Iran military conflict as diplomatic talks gained traction and fresh investor optimism builds around Musk's ambitions to build a massive in-house semiconductor fabrication plant for AI chips.

Musk Flags China Output Constraint 

Last week, Farley, in an interview with Fast Company, said: “If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re all going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla — they’ve been doing great — but they really don’t have an updated vehicle.”

"The best in the business for us, cost-wise and competition-wise, supply chain, manufacturing expertise, and the IP in the vehicle, was really BYD. And BYD became the highest-volume brand in China, not VW or the Western brands," he added. 

Responding to Farley’s remarks, Musk said on X, “This is before supervised FSD [full self-driving] is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.”

Farley said Chinese automakers had forced U.S. manufacturers to boost innovation rather than rely on legacy advantages. “That is the gift that China gave us: to be fearful and respectful enough of their progress that we could not organically just phone it in,” Farley said. “We needed to do what Americans sometimes do great, which is use innovation to compete against the best in the world.”

Tesla Signals Progress On China FSD Rollout

Tesla has been laying the groundwork for a broader rollout of supervised FSD in China, though the company has not announced a confirmed launch timeline. In February, Tesla China Vice President Grace Tao said the company established a dedicated local training center to adapt the system to domestic driving conditions. “Once officially released, it will demonstrate a level of performance that is no less than, and may even surpass, that of local drivers,” Tao said. 

Musk previously said that FSD has received only partial regulatory approval in China so far, with full authorization potentially arriving this year. 

Over the weekend, Tesla expanded its unsupervised Robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston, adding two new Texas hubs to its growing driverless ride-hailing network. Tesla’s autonomy rollout is also gaining traction in Europe, where the Netherlands recently granted the company its first approval for FSD (Supervised).

China Rivals Step Up Pressure On TSLA

Tesla’s Shanghai factory is the EV maker’s largest global export hub and a central pillar of its Asia manufacturing strategy, supporting both domestic Chinese demand and overseas shipments.

The company faces rising competition from domestic automakers, including BYD, as well as tech-linked vehicle platforms from Xiaomi and Huawei. Chinese manufacturers have increasingly bundled advanced driver-assistance features into vehicles at lower price points or without additional software fees, putting pressure on Tesla’s paid FSD in the region. 

Tesla had earlier introduced expanded navigation capabilities through an Autopilot update in China, though the features remained less advanced than the FSD version available in the U.S. Meanwhile, domestic rivals such as BYD have rolled out advanced driver-assistance features across much of their lineup, including on lower-priced models.

Even as competition in China has intensified, Tesla recently regained the global battery-electric vehicle delivery lead in the first quarter of 2026, reporting 358,023 deliveries compared with BYD’s 310,389 battery-electric units over the same period.

How Do Retail Traders Feel About TSLA, BYDDF?

TSLA stock ended last week up 15%, snapping an eight-week losing streak and posting its strongest weekly performance in nearly a year.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for TSLA was ‘extremely bullish’ amid ‘high’ message volume, while BYDDF sentiment was ‘bullish’ amid ‘low’ message volume.

One user expects TSLA stock to hit $420 on Monday — a recurring meme price target in Tesla retail circles — on the back of the Robotaxi's rollout in Houston and Dallas.

Another user noted that TSLA stock has “been putting consistent lows since end of last December, but looks like this could be the real reversal.”

TSLA stock has declined 11% so far this year, ranking as the second-worst performer after Microsoft among the "Magnificent Seven” peer group.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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