BYD's Ambition Of Mastering 5 Percent Electric Car Market Shares In Europe, Refuses To Be Equated With Tesla

The luxury interior of BYD Seal is competing with the Tesla Model 3. (Doc. BYD)

JAKARTA - A car manufacturer from China, BYD, has launched an ambition to control 5 percent of the electric car market share in Europe, even before starting production at their new Hungarian plant. This target is equivalent to 70,000 full electric cars. If it includes plug-in hybrids, the target can reach nearly 115,000 units.

In 2023, BYD only sold less than 16,000 cars in Europe, all electric cars were full, and only won a market share of 1.1 percent.

European BYD CEO Michael Shu said in a special interview with Automotive News, quoted Thursday, March 14, this ambitious target is not impossible. BYD is just starting in Europe and is still learning how the market responds to their technology, products and services.

Shu said BYD has a different target for every market in Europe, but overall, they want to hit 5 percent of the electric car market share before starting local production.

When we build in Europe, we will get closer to customers, offer faster delivery, and people will trust us more. Our target is to become a European company and not a Chinese company doing business in Europe. This will be from Europe for Europe, "said Shu.

He further stated BYD will only use advanced technology from China when it begins construction here, but work will be carried out at local factories, using local workers and localized supply chains.

"Next month, we will hold an event to attract European suppliers to support our factory in Hungary. We want to involve them from scratch," added Shu.

The plant in Hungary will be the first for BYD in Europe and will have a production capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year that can be increased to 300,000. Production will begin before 2026 and focus on electric cars with batteries built in Hungary.

Shu said BYD wanted to be a premium brand in Europe at affordable prices. They are also considering bringing the Denza and YangWang brands to Europe.

BYD chose a traditional distribution model with franchise dealers to reach the European market. Shu said they still need to expand their network of dealers to achieve their expansion targets.

Interestingly, at the end of the interview Shu firmly refused if BYD was considered the Tesla of China.

I think this comes from people who don't understand BYD and don't understand Tesla. It's true that we have competitive products like Seal and Model 3, but we are very different companies. BYD has many brand and technology portfolios including our most advanced plug-in hybrid cars while Tesla is an electric car that only has one brand," he concluded.