The Chinese electric vehicle giant is bringing affordable prices, cutting-edge technology and an aggressive strategy to the region’s markets
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BYD electric buses enter into the public transport system in Santiago, Chile, 2016. Almost a decade later, the Chinese company’s strategy in the South American country is now focused on selling light cars and plug-in hybrids (Image: Mara Daruich / Municipalidad de Santiago, CC BY NC)
A new world order is being contested in the electric vehicles sector. While the trade war between the United States and China rumbles on, the Chinese electric carmaker BYD has already pulled ahead in the race against its US counterpart Tesla.
In 2024, BYD sold 4.2 million electric and plug-in hybrid cars, more than any other company in the world, while achieving an annual revenue of CNY 777 billion (USD 108 billion). Tesla, meanwhile, reported delivering 1.8 million vehicles, and USD 97.7 billion in revenue.
BYD’s 2025 first-quarter reporting indicates its “new energy vehicle” sales grew by 60% year-on-year. This has been driven in part by the launch of a new charging technology, the Super e-Platform, which BYD claims can add 400 kilometres of range to a battery in just five minutes. At the time of writing, Tesla’s Supercharger network was offering approximately 75% of this range from a 15-minute charging time.
In just a few years, BYD has gone from manufacturing batteries to putting China into pole position to lead on the future of mobility. Now, it is beginning doing so in Latin America, a region that still overwhelmingly runs on diesel and petrol.
From batteries to electric cars
BYD, sporadically marketed as “Build Your Dreams”, emerged in 1995, initially as a manufacturer of rechargeable batteries for mobile phones. In 2003, it made a decisive turn as the electric car market was taking off, acquiring the small Chinese car factory Xi’an Qinchuan Automobile to design its own vehicles.
In just five years, it surprised the world with the launch of the F3DM, which BYD says was the world’s first plug-in hybrid. By 2022, it had stopped making full-combustion engine vehicles to focus exclusively on electric and plug-in hybrids.
BYD now has more than 30 industrial parks and operates in approximately 400 cities across over 70 countries. In February, founder Wang Chuanfu attributed BYD’s success to its 110,000-strong engineering team: “Behind every one of our technologies is innovation, behind every one is ecological development, and behind every one is the hard work of 110,000 engineers.” Speaking during a Chinese national television interview, he also claimed China’s electric cars are three to five years ahead of their competitors “in terms of products, technology and the industrial chain”.
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BYD models on display at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, southern China. In June 2024, Peruvian president Dina Boluarte visited the carmaker’s office during an official trip to China (Image: Presidencia Perú / Flickr, CC BY NC SA)
Betting big on Latin America
The company reportedly wants to double its sales outside China to 800,000 units during 2025. Its goal is for almost half of its cars to be sold abroad.
“Chinese companies are desperate to find new markets for their products and have moved very quickly in Latin America,” says Ilaria Mazzocco, an expert on Chinese climate policy at Washington DC’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “It’s something that the Chinese government has supported so far, but for the moment Latin America is not a substitute for the much larger European market,” she tells Dialogue Earth. Since November, Chinese-made EVs have faced tariffs of up to 45% in the European Union.
BYD’s presence is already noticeable in Brazil, where the company represents seven of every 10 electric cars sold, according to Associated Press. Furthermore, BYD has been testing its influence by lobbying the Brazilian government for lower import tariffs, which have been steadily rising to encourage domestic electric vehicle manufacturing. The company has now acquired its first Brazilian production plant, on the east coast in Bahia state, where production is currently set to start this month. Operations had been delayed due to an investigation into severe labour abuses at the facility, for which the Brazilian prosecutors have sued the company.
In Colombia, BYD leads the electric vehicle market, accounting for a 42.5% share in 2024, according to the Latin American Association of Automotive Distributors (ALADDA). The government is promoting this transition with the National Electric Mobility Strategy, which seeks to put 600,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2030. BYD already assembles electric buses in Colombia, and is reportedly considering setting up a plant to assemble cars.
During 2024, BYD sold 40,000 units in Mexico, a figure it plans to double this year. Part of its strategy includes building a plant with the capacity to produce more than 150,000 vehicles per year. However, the project is stalled as Beijing is reportedly assessing the risks of BYD’s smart car technology being leaked across the border into the United States, according to the United Kingdom’s Financial Times.
Elsewhere, BYD leads sales in Ecuador with more than 47% of the electric vehicle market according to the ALADDA. In Peru, it hopes to claim 50% of its hybrid and all-electric vehicles market by 2025. In Argentina, meanwhile, the brand has just announced its launch.
“A few years ago, its focus was on urban transport: electric buses in Chile and Colombia,” explains Jose Luis Torres De La Piedra, an expert in electromobility and former BYD Peru sales manager. “Now, there is a redefinition of the strategy. Their priority is light cars and plug-in hybrids.”
“In Peru, the [BYD] office has existed since 2018, when the idea of an electric car seemed far away,” recalls Torres De La Piedra. “That speaks of a vision of the future. They don’t just sell cars, they sell technology. And today the world embraces technology.”
An electric future made in Latin America?
According to the ALADDA’s 2024 data, almost 412,500 electrified vehicles – plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles – were sold in Latin America, representing year-on-year growth of 73.5%. Brazil led with a year-on-year increase of 88.7%, consolidating its position as the most important market in the region, followed by Mexico (67%) and Colombia (65%).
While Tesla is concentrating its strategy on the United States and Europe, BYD is making inroads in Latin America and Southeast Asia with its lower prices. A ranking by the not-for-profit technology publication Rest of World revealed BYD’s cheapest vehicles for Latin America to be in Mexico and Chile; prices start at USD 20,402 and USD 21,191 respectively.
“That may ease the transition to electric cars in the region. But it can also put other competitors out of the game,” warns Margaret Myers, director of the Asia and Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington DC-based NGO. “The US doesn’t compete in that price range. So, in Brazil, for example, how do you compete with a USD 20,000 Chinese electric? It’s impossible.”
This has not gone unnoticed by the European Union. Since 2023, the European Commission has been closely monitoring Chinese companies for alleged unfair competition, suspicious that they might be receiving Chinese state subsidies. In October 2024, it imposed a 17% tariff on BYD electric vehicles being sold in the bloc, and in March it was revealed the European Commission had opened a connected investigation into a Hungarian BYD plant.
BYD aside, a broader question posed by this trend is whether Latin America will remain simply a market for Chinese electric cars, or if it will itself become a production hub for the new automotive era.
Myers thinks if Latin America plays its cards right, it could become a strategic player in the electromobility revolution. “But the critical question is whether BYD has integrated into local value chains,” she says. “If there is no technology transfer and no domestic industrialisation processes, there will be no long-term benefits. If Latin America does not demand today that these investments include technology transfer, it will be left out of the revolution – and the same old story will repeat itself.”
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence. Read the original article.
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