Beijing, Feb 19 (IANS): Chinese electric carmaker BYD is expanding operations overseas, setting a unit sales target for 2023 to overtake Elon Musk-run Tesla, the media reported on Sunday.

Operating in more than 40 nations, BYD plans to sell nearly two million EVs this year, including in Japan and countries in Southeast Asia and Europe, according to a Nikkei Asia report.

"Our dream will come true as a result of research and development efforts over 20 years. We will change the global industrial structure for luxury cars," Wang Chuanfu, founder and chairman of BYD, was quoted as saying.

Moreover, the report said that BYD is set to release the Yangwang U8 off-road SUV and the U9 supercar in 2023, with prices ranging between 8,00,000 ($1,16,878) and 1.5 million yuan.

Due to its precarious position in the Chinese market, BYD will enter the luxury EV sector.

The company's growth has been fuelled by strong sales of low and medium-priced models ranging from 1,00,000 ($14,561) to 3,00,000 yuan ($43,683), such as the BYD Song, BYD Qin and BYD Han, according to the report.

However, competition in this price range is heating up. Tesla resorted to steep price cuts in January, lowering the base Model 3 to 229,000 yuan ($33,344) from 265,900 yuan ($38,718).

It now competes head-on with BYD in the medium-priced market, the report mentioned.

In December last year, BYD Auto remained the global market leader, shipping more than 5,37,000 EV units -- an increase of 197 per cent (on-year) -- in the third quarter this year, leaving Elon Musk-run Tesla far behind globally.

BYD's top three models -- BYD Song, BYD Qin and BYD Han -- contributed to over 56 per cent of the company's sales during the quarter.

On the other hand, Tesla's global sales grew only 43 per cent YoY in Q3 2022 to over 343,000 units, according to Counterpoint Research.