#BYD

The U.S. is set to implement harsh tariffs on Chinese vehicles, and many lawmakers have expressed grave privacy concerns, but those issues haven’t squashed younger buyers’ curiosity. AutoPacific’s recent study found that 35 percent of respondents between 18 and 80 years old said they would consider a Chinese car, and a whopping 76 percent of people under 40 responded that way.

Chinese automaker BYD (Build Your Dreams) doesn’t currently sell vehicles in the U.S., but it’s coming awfully close to our borders. It recently revealed a plug-in hybrid truck for the Mexican market, but said it has no plans to bring it north of the border – for now.

I just finished reading a piece that's been bouncing around the Internet for a few days now.

Inside EVs sent automotive journalist Kevin Williams to the Beijing Auto Show, and Williams walked away feeling like Chinese automakers are, generally speaking, building cars that could come to the States and immediately steal plenty of buyers from American, European, Japanese, and Korean automakers.

While American politicians love to harp about TikTok’s Chinese owners and the national security issues that could bring, it may also be true that they worry that the platform is influencing an entire generation with quick hits of liberal political thought and economic theory. A recent survey from AlixPartners found that young TikTok users are increasingly seeing EVs on the app, with more than half of them saying they were aware of Chinese brands like Lynk&Co and BYD.

Chinese automakers are expanding into Mexico, with companies like BYD opening dealerships across the country. Even so, the Mexican government isn’t rolling out the red carpet due to pressure from the United States. Automotive News reported that the country would not offer tax incentives or land discounts to Chinese automakers. It noted that the U.S. government believes that they should not be able to enter North America without paying tariffs.

Among many other things, the Inflation Reduction Act changed the way EV tax credits work in the United States. With an eye on reducing America’s dependence on Chinese batteries and materials, the Act incentivizes automakers to source materials from free-trade-compliant countries and build EVs in North America. Now, China is expressing its unhappiness with the legislation by raising a dispute with the World Trade Organization.

Chinese automaker BYD has been seeking to build an automotive plant in Mexico, with the company’s regional chief executive confirming the plan on Wednesday. CEO Stella Li has stated that BYD has yet to decide upon a final location. But that plan is for the site to boast a production capacity of 150,000 vehicles annually, with none being slated for export to the United States.

China’s BYD is reportedly prepared to set up a new production facility in Mexico with the alleged plan to use the locale as an export hub for the United States.

Mexico has long been a convenient venue for automakers vying to sell products within the Western Hemisphere without having to pay the kind of salaries commensurate with higher living standards. American brands love sending jobs to Mexico, as does every other company interested in moving high volume models through North and South America. With BYD having previously voiced its global aspirations, setting up shop in El Águila Real seems like an obvious play.

Tesla just had its best sales year ever, beating its sales target and delivering more than 484,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter. Despite that success, the company fell behind Chinese automaker BYD for the first time.

Build Your Dreams, or BYD, is likely one of the largest companies you’ve never heard of. The Chinese giant is one of the world’s busiest EV automakers, with almost 1.9 million units manufactured in 2022. Though enormous, BYD isn’t satisfied with dominating its home market and wants the rest of the Chinese electric auto industry to come with it.

BYD, China’s largest electric automaker, isn’t as gung-ho about autonomous vehicles as many other auto industry giants. A company spokesperson recently said that BYD believes self-driving tech that is “fully separated from humans is very, very far away, and basically impossible.” 

BYD is a massive Chinese company operating in multiple industries, including solar panels, industrial equipment, and autos. Rumors of its imminent arrival in North America have swirled in recent months, and the automaker was expected to mount a strong showing at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month, but nothing materialized. 

Following several months of news that Apple Inc. was in talks with battery suppliers to set the company up with the necessary hardware and know-how to manufacture electric vehicles, it looks like the iPhone purveyor is back to square one. Reports have emerged claiming the discussions with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) and BYD have stalled.

While the tech giant is said to be keeping a channel open, companies informed Apple over the last two months that they would not be willing to establish teams and U.S. facilities catering exclusively to its needs. While Japan’s Panasonic is still in the mix as a potential partner, it’s looking like the other companies are bowing out. Reasons are said to vary, however, political tensions between the U.S. and China are alleged to be a contributing factor.

On Friday, Toyota Motor Corp. announced it had signed an agreement for the joint development of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) with China’s BYD Company Ltd. Technically, BYD also made an announcement but we’re not scouring their press page on an hourly basis. Toyota gets top billing.

According to the release, the two companies will jointly develop “sedans and low-floor SUVs as well as the onboard batteries for these vehicles and others with the aim to launch them in the Chinese market under the Toyota brand in the first half of the 2020s.”

Having previously announced it was teaming up with Contemporary Amerex Technology (CATL) and Panasonic to supply and develop batteries, Toyota is trying to expand rapidly into electric development — after showing limited interest for years. We’ve no clue how these partnerships will influence the brand’s physical products outside of Asia but, at the very least, it should have fewer battery supply issues than some of the competition moving forward.

For those of you not glued to the latest in Chinese electric car news, the BYD (Build Your Dreams) E6 was the best-selling electric vehicle in the world’s most populous country last year. Forget about Nissan or Tesla — BYD is the real electric stud overseas.

The E6 is a conventional-looking four-door crossover (or tall hatch, if you prefer) offered in a number of markets, including the United States. However, here the E6 is marketed as an “electric taxi” and offered only to fleet buyers. A handful have arrived already, but the Berkshire Hathaway-backed automaker has larger plans for the U.S.