Yes BYD had the most R&D staff, but that's the problem: There are simply too many brands under BYD's umbrella. Every line-up tries to re-invent the wheel with R&D of their own
- The vanilla BYD (discontinued, mostly ICE cars)
- the E series
- Dynasty series
- Ocean series
- Formula Leopard
- Denza
- Yangwang
- commercial vehicles, batteries, railway transports, OEMs, etc.
And many models are overlapping with each other. Jack of all trades, the best selling one is the Seagull from the Ocean series and it costs about $10k
Western companies like Stellantis have 13 different brands for different customers, too.
It's just how car companies operate. They want to sell their customers the illusions of exclusivity while buying a car from the biggest car company on earth.
It might not be a bad strategy starting up. You don't know which R&D is going to pan out, so you start a lot of different branches and let the market select the best.
- The vanilla BYD (discontinued, mostly ICE cars)
- the E series
- Dynasty series
- Ocean series
- Formula Leopard
- Denza
- Yangwang
- commercial vehicles, batteries, railway transports, OEMs, etc.
And many models are overlapping with each other. Jack of all trades, the best selling one is the Seagull from the Ocean series and it costs about $10k