BYD's Stella Li Is The 2025 World Car Person of the Year

Stella Li, Executive Vice-President of BYD, is the World Car Person of the Year for 2025. Here's why she won.

Stella Li

Photo by: BYD

By: Gianmarco Gori

Translated by: Christopher Smith

Jan 28, 2025 at 3:30pm ET

Add InsideEVs as a preferred source in Google

Comment

The World Car Person of the Year is an award that annually recognizes a global automotive executive who has made a significant contribution to the industry during the previous calendar year.

For 2025, a jury composed of 96 journalists from all over the world voted for Stella Li, Executive Vice President of BYD. The “Lady of Electric Cars” is guiding one of the largest companies in the global automotive sector.

An important victory

This marks the first time the coveted award was presented to a woman, and to a Chinese company. According to the association's press release, Stella Li has proven to be a key figure in BYD's international growth in 2024. She organized a series of very important global model debuts and oversaw the brand's entry into new markets, all of which were significant factors in surpassing the milestone of producing 10 million electric or hybrid vehicles.

Li was chosen over finalists Ralph Gilles, the head of design for Stellantis, and Simon Humphries, Toyota's chief branding officer and head of global design.

Last year, our colleagues at Motor1 sat down with Li for an exclusive interview where she discussed a plethora of plans for the future.

What do you think?

View

Comments

The 2024 World Car of the Year award will be presented on April 16 at the New York International Auto Show.

World Car Person of the Year

Let's remember who won the past editions of the World Car Person of the Year award:

2024 Adrian Newey, chief technical officer of Red Bull Racing
2023 SangYup Lee, executive vice president and head of Hyundai Global Design Center and Genesis, Hyundai Motor Company
2022 Luc Donckerwolke, executive vice president of design and chief creative officer, Hyundai Motor Group
2021 Akio Toyoda, president and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation
2020 Carlos Tavares, CEO of PSA Group
2019 Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FCA, chairman of CNH Industrial, and chairman/CEO of Ferrari
2018 Håkan Samuelsson, president and CEO of Volvo Car Group (inaugural winner)

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Insideevs.com?

Take our 3 minute survey.

- The InsideEVs team

Share this Story

GO TO COMMENTS

(

)

Got a tip for us? Email: tips@insideevs.com

View all comments ( )

Trending

GM's Next-Generation EV Platform Has 30% Less Wiring And 20% Less Battery

Can The BMW iX3 Take Down The Tesla Model Y L And Rivian R2?

GM's OnStar AI Assistant Debuts In The Cadillac Lyriq

Electrify America’s Largest EV Charging Station Is Missing One Big Thing