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BYD is a relative newcomer – but its growth has been remarkable. Last year it built 4.27 million cars – all of them either hybrid or electric.
Striving for number 1 spot
BYD is a relative newcomer – but its growth has been remarkable. Last year it built 4.27 million cars – all of them either hybrid or electric.
The company was founded just 30 years ago as a battery maker, and only moved into car manufacturing when it bought a small Chinese automaker in 2003. But even then, the eyes were on combining battery with car, and BYD has been building EVs since 2009.
Executive Vice-President Stella Li has been with the company since the late 1990s, and was earlier this year voted World Car Person of the year –the first woman, and the first Chinese auto executive, to win this award.
Li is credited with powering BYD’s growth – and that is an ongoing process, she says. BYD is the global number one maker of electrified vehicles (PHEVs and EVs), and she wants that to be the case in all overseas markets – with one major exception.
“We are going to every country except US and Canada – it’s too complicated. We don’t want to deal with the complexity of the political relationships,” she says. That just relates to car sales, however. BYD is happy to supply batteries in the US – indeed, it makes them there. And one of its biggest customers is one of its biggest automotive rivals – Tesla.
“BYD is one of leading players in battery sales,” Li says. “We sell to a number of other auto brands as well as Tesla. There is competition between car brands but we can also cooperate and support each other. We will continue working in that area as BYD has very strong manufacturing capability.”
The UK is one of BYD’s top five target markets, she says, along with the other major European markets such as France and Germany. Already BYD has five models on sale, with more to follow – next up is an entry-level hatchback which will expand BYD’s market reach.
And later this year it will launch a second brand, Denza, as an up-market luxury and performance brand, closer to Porsche than Mercedes-Benz or BMW. “The Denza brand will have very cutting-edge technology,” she says, describing the brand as “more premium than Mercedes”. And there will be at least 7 models including saloons, coupes, MPVs and SUVs. With a strong focus on battery technology comes a focus on charging technology. BYD has announced plans to install chargers capable of delivering 2km of range every second – so a 300km recharge would take just 5 minutes.“In China people complain that 20 mins is too long to recharge –we want to develop technology that makes recharging as fast as refuelling with gasoline,” she says.
To achieve this BYD has developed a 1.3megawatt charger – but that can only work on cars with a 1,000volt platform – which means the next generation of BYDs.
“When we introduce new models that can do this we will introduce our fast superchargers in the UK,” Li says. These will not be BYD-owned, but will be supplied to commercial networks.
They will need large amounts of battery storage (supplied by BYD, of course) –but because they’re so fast, you won’t need so many.
For the moment, BYD recognizes that BEVs are only achieving market shares of around 20% in Europe. “More than 70% of the population stays with ICE cars and are not comfortable with EVs,” she admits. For that reason, BYD will continue to offer a range of PHEVs. “This is the way to open the door for the 70% to move toward EV,” she says.
By 2035, of course, it will have to be all EVs. Li is unconcerned. “I don’t worry about the UK after 2035. The UK is not a big country. Put in big supercharging stations, and you can cover it. Once people build up a habit of using EVs, it’s workable.”
She cites the experience of Chinese taxi fleets, where EVs are often working 24/7 and covering 500km a day. In the UK, the way to make the EV transition work is to provide many more chargers, she believes. “At shopping malls, 30% of car park spaces will be chargers. They will be at all workplaces. Once people get used to it, they won’t worry about range.”
Given the large number of Chinese car companies entering the market, is there room for everyone? Li believes there will be consolidation – as that is what has happened before, for example in the cellphone market, where 20-30 brands has shrunk to just 2 or 3. The same will happen with car brands. “BYD is not planning any takeovers but some will disappear. Only some Chinese car companies will survive.”
