BYD wants to become the world’s largest automaker in five years. Stella Li is the executive selling that vision to the world

When Wang Chuanfu, CEO of Chinese EV company BYD, told shareholders in Shenzhen this week that the company would become the world’s largest automaker within five years, he pointed to growing production and sales overseas as one of the major paths to get there.

As BYD faces increasing pressure at home, this international expansion has become a vital part of the company’s business model. At the forefront of this is Chuanfu’s long-time partner, Stella Li, BYD’s executive VP and CEO of America. Over her 30-year career at the Chinese EV and technology giant, Li has overseen the company’s transformation from its origins as a maker of mobile phone batteries to the world’s top seller of electric vehicles.

She’s widely seen as the architect of the company’s rapid international expansion. In an interview, Li told Fortune she spends roughly 70% of her time traveling, meeting government officials, hiring local executives, and personally shaping pricing and product strategy market by market. She also leads the company’s roadshows, touring countries to demonstrate BYD’s newest offerings.

In April, when Li arrived at the Paris Opera House to showcase the European launch of BYD’s newest luxury car—flanked by ballerinas and opera singers—it was clear why some colleagues had dubbed BYD’s international roadshow: “The Stella Show.”

In the last few years, BYD has been on an impressive sales trajectory. In 2022, the company dropped pure internal-combustion models from its lineup, focusing solely on electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. By 2024, global vehicle sales had reached 4.27 million units, ranking the company fourth among global car manufacturers. In 2025, BYD sold a record 4.6 million new-energy vehicles, making it the world’s top-selling EV maker by pure-electric sales—stealing the crown from Elon Musk‘s Tesla.

Much of this growth has been driven by its global expansion. International sales more than doubled in 2025 to just over one million vehicles as BYD pushed into Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, where higher pricing helps offset fierce domestic competition and ongoing price wars in China’s EV market. In May, BYD sold more than 160,000 vehicles abroad, up 80% year-on-year, and is targeting 1.5 million overseas sales in 2026.

But the road ahead is far from straightforward. At home, BYD faces brutal price wars in China’s increasingly competitive EV market. Overseas, it is navigating regulatory pressure, labor rights allegations, and a U.S. market that remains effectively closed. Li has historically been the key figure bridging those gaps, but as the company’s ambitions have skyrocketed, so have its challenges.

BYD’s International Push

Li has effectively built the company’s overseas presence from scratch over her 30-year tenure. Within a few years of joining forces with Chuanfu, she had opened BYD’s first international outposts—with BYD Europe founded in 1998, before moving into the U.S. and Japan.

BYD’s current international foothold is a far cry from the company’s shabby, rented factory floors, which Li first toured in 1996.

When Li first met BYD founder and CEO Wang Chuanfu, he was operating out of a two-room apartment—one acting as his office, the other the finance department, she told Fortune. She said she was initially struck by his ambition, but won over by a tour of the factory floor.

“Outside it was........

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