BYD is expanding its partnership with Forvia, the world’s seventh-largest auto tech supplier, as it builds its presence in Europe.
Forvia announced that it had been chosen to supply BYD’s new EV plant in Turkey. The news comes shortly after the two companies said they would work together to launch BYD’s first European plant in Hungary.
After dominating its home market, China (and the world’s largest EV market), BYD is eyeing overseas markets for growth, including Europe.
Over the past seven years, BYD and Forvia have opened seven plants in China.
BYD’s leader said starting prices would be around $27,500 to $30,000 ((25,000 to 30,000 euros) in Germany, Europe’s largest auto market.
BYD also recently bought out its distributor in Germany, Heden Electric Mobility, giving it more control over prices and volume. Even with extra tariffs, some studies found BYD would still make more per EV than European automakers like Volkswagen.
BYD sees Brazil as a critical piece to its overseas expansion as it looks to continue climbing the global sales charts.
The Shark is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) pickup with 429 combined horsepower. Powered by a 29.58 kWh BYD Blade Battery, it has an all-electric NEDC range of up to 62 miles (100 km) and a combined NEDC range of over 520 miles (840 km).
Although gas and diesel-powered trucks still dominate sales in Brazil, BYD believes its hybrid pickup will attract buyers.
BYD has a higher overall gross margin (i.e., cost of goods sold vs. what you sell them for) and much higher when just looking at automotive gross margin, excluding regulatory credits. BYD invests more in R&D and employs by far the most R&D engineers of any automaker. BYD has more clean tech IP. BYD is more vertically integrated. BYD makes all of its own batteries and supplies most of the materials within them. BYD has a larger business beyond automotive with a larger electronics, ESS, and solar presence (although these are lower-margin segments). BYD has a much larger commercial vehicle presence. And BYD is selling most of their vehicles below the $30,000 price point that Elon has been promising for over a decade but has never delivered upon.