BYD Targets Europe with Smaller, Tailored EV Models

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The theme of the week month year has been Chinese electric vehicle producers working to export more of their vehicles ASAP around the world. We’ve also got news now of BYD planning a big wave of plugin vehicles for the European market. In other words, the story continues…. Chinese EV producers, led by BYD, are working hard to sell many more plugin vehicles externally, especially as it has become hard to maintain sales growth in China.

In the next three years, BYD will introduce a wave of new plugin vehicles. The Dolphin G plugin hybrid will be the first to get rolled out. It will be launched at the UK at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July. It will be the tiniest EV available in the UK, essentially a cousin of the Dolphin Surf (BEV). We don’t know what the other models will be, but there will apparently be a wave of them.

Stella Li, executive vice-president of BYD, isn’t even beating around the bush. She wants BYD to become so popular and commonplace in Europe that it’s seen as a European company (somehow … to some extent) — “our goal is for customers to think of BYD as a European brand,” she told Autocar. Having factories in Europe should help with that.

“[The Dolphin G] is the first product we have designed for Europe, as there is no interest in China [for this type of car], and in the future there will be more and more products designed for European tastes and consumer needs and designed here.” What does she mean? She got more explicit, saying China wants bigger and bigger vehicles. Yup, no more small, cheap cars — that’s not what the largest auto market in the world wants any more. I guess this issue isn’t only plaguing the US.

“Sometimes I have to tell the engineer: ‘Don’t make this car bigger, not for Europe. It needs to be smaller than 4.3m [long] not bigger.’ I see a very clear split now [between China and Europe].

“In the next three years, car design [for these models] will be much more for Europe. No longer [will] China cars [be] shipped to here to share with Europe.”

“So then I saw a very clear roadmap. Now in certain ranges such as C- or B-segment we are going to split, so now we are going to have a European standard for B and C,” she added. As much as Wang Chuanfu may be a technical genius and tremendous businessman, Stella Li has been instrumental to the company’s massive growth over the last decade, and she is certainly the one leading the company current expansion efforts globally. She’s sort of the subtle giant of the EV industry.

She did add that all of these Europe-focused designs would also be produced in Europe. The company has a factory being built in Hungary, and I also just reported on the possibility of BYD taking over an underutilized Stellantis factory in Europe.

Related: BYD Exported More Vehicles In April Than Tesla Sold Worldwide*