BYD putting EU on hold, kicking UK while creating more jobs and cars

BYD, the undisputed leader of the EV-world and destroyer of Tesla, is going to produce cars in the EU. In Szeged, Hungary to be precise. Just not as much as it promised to do. According to a report from Reuters the Chinese manufacturer is moving a lot of the production to their factory in Turkey. Why? Because you don’t have to pay workers as much over there.

Also, BYD still gets to avoid the tariffs on EV’s the EU has imposed on electric cars from China. And that has to hurt the plans of the EU a bit, which was quite proud to welcome BYD to Hungary with open arms as it saw it as a way to get some EV-expertise to the continent while simultaneously creating meaningful jobs. Both of which don’t really seem to happen now.

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The Chinese car company will be pushing the Turkish plant beyond what it was planned to do, while producing only a couple of tens of thousands of cars in Hungary. A far cry from the planned 300.000 a year.

It seems like BYD has to make things work out on the balance sheets, because the company also announced it will be introducing Yangwang, one of the luxury brands of BYD, in the EU early next year. Because we’re talking about cars that will cost way above 100.000 euros, and even more than 200.000 euros, the EU-tariffs will also be quite steep. Covering this with choosing to produce in countries with lower wages, seems like a solution.

BYD’s executive vice-president Stella Li told Autocar that the EU will be getting the U8 and the U9. The first being a huge 1100 hp strong SUV that can float and do tank turns, the latter being a supercar with 1.300 hp and the ability to jump (no joke)

The gimmicks of these cars will undoubtedly drive some sales, but it very much remains to be seen if these kinds of expensive EV’s will turn out to be a success in the very brand loyal European Union. Also, sellers of these kinds of expensive battery boxes are just not seeing interest from buyers. And those people are from recognized (European) brands, not brand spanking new ones.

Let’s not forget that the market for expensive EV’s is already very saturated and the demand for cheap ones is still growing.

As a kicker, Stella chose to kick the UK in the nuts by calling the new EV-incentives “stupid”. To be fair, I’d think they’d be stupid too if I was Stella, because they hurt BYD the most. The incentives are being calculated on the emissions not only of the car, but also the production. That means Chinese brands are essentially excluded.

As a token of her dismay of the Island, Stella then promised to create more than 5.000 jobs in the UK through BYD dealerships and said that, even without an incentive, a lot of her cars will be sold to Brits wanting to drive electric.

I like Stella.

In other news:

I’ve never known Volvo-owners to be the hateful types, but Vicken Kanadjian , the creator of MyVolvoEX90.com, seems to be unhappy to say the least. He created a complete site on which EX90 owners can share their crappy experiences with the car, which is known to have software faults. I know, I’ve driven a couple of them and found some weird stuff happened while driving. None dangerous, but awkward and irritating at the most. Not so much to the point I would sue Volvo, which Kanadjian has done.

Good news, Lucid is back in the news. And it’s positive, I think. Because the Air will be getting better and will be getting access to Tesla Superchargers (in the US that is, in the EU every EV already has that…). For some weird reason a Lucid will only be able to charge at 50 kW at a Tesla Supercharger (again, only in the US). You’d almost think there is something going on between Lucid and Tesla…

When you let Mate talk, you get information.

Also: it’s all fun and games speculating about Verstappens move to Mercedes, but the AI-slop surrounding this should be forbidden and makers of this form of enshittification should be dismembered and hanged.

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