The value of BYD shares held by Berkshire Hathaway, owned by Buffett, has soared by $2 billion this year, bringing its position in the Chinese electric car company to nearly $8 billion, a gain of 3400 per cent in less than 13 years.

In 2008, Berkshire invested $232 million to buy 225 million BYD Hong Kong shares. According to the company's latest annual report, Berkshire's Byd Company Limited stake was worth $5.9 billion by the end of last year, making it Buffett's eighth largest stock. Since then, BYD's shares have risen about 23 per cent, raising Berkshire's value of Byd Company Limited to $7.9 billion.

BYD said passenger car sales in August more than quadrupled from a year earlier to 60500. The company's Hong Kong-listed shares rose 8 per cent on Monday. In the first eight months of this year, BYD sold 261000 passenger cars, more than triple the sales in the same period in 2020. Of this total, all-electric vehicle sales rose 125 per cent to 149000, while plug-in hybrid sales rose 485 per cent to 112000. By contrast, BYD's sales of gasoline-powered cars fell 22 per cent to 106000 over the same period.

Since Berkshire's investment, BYD's revenue has nearly quadrupled to $24 billion, while net profit has more than tripled to about $1 billion.