The Chinese auto giant is expanding its footprint in India, but still doesn’t have a production facility
The Chinese carmaker BYD has refuted the plans of setting up the EV product plant in India after the internet was flooded with reports of it investing $10 billion in India a week ago. BYD is one of the biggest NEV (New Energy Vehicle) players in the world. In fact, it keeps on competing with Tesla and even briefly overtook it in the last quarter of last year. The brand is slowly and steadily entering the international markets with its price-competitive products. For now, let us take a look at the specifics of this case here.
BYD Denies EV Plant Plans
Last week, many reports emerged online which suggested that BYD is planning to invest around $10 billion in India to set up a manufacturing plant. At present, we get imported EVs from the Chinese carmaker. The reports mentioned that it wants to establish a manufacturing facility in Hyderabad. Furthermore, the reports claimed that the government of Telangana offered BYD 3 sites for the same. However, the Chinese carmaker has denied any such discussions with the government.
As a matter of fact, it released an official statement on its WeChat account, dismissing these reports as untrue. That is quite strange since the latest EV policy by the Indian government eases the process of foreign carmakers to enter India by making an investment and manufacturing commitments. That is exactly how VinFast entered our market. It is possible that, because of being a Chinese carmaker, BYD had to struggle a bit to gain the trust of the Indian government and market.
My View
The border tensions between India and China in recent years have affected the business. India boycotted many Chinese apps a couple of years ago in retaliation to the fights on the Indo-China border. Things have improved since then. Still, there is some reservation among the Indian citizens and the government regarding Chinese companies doing business here. Nevertheless, BYD has been steadily expanding its footprint in India. Currently, it offers multiple EVs here, including the Atto 3, Seal, Sealion 7 and eMAX 7. Let’s see how things pan out going forward.
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