German press: Chinese automaker BYD to build its first European plant in Hungary

China’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer BYD plans to build its first European factory in Hungary. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported this today. Citing sources familiar with the matter, it said the decision had already been made internally. The parties involved did not comment. The Sunday paper did not give the size of the investment.

Last month, the website of the local government in Shenzhen in southern China, where BYD is based, published a post saying that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had met with the company’s chairman and president, Wang Chuanfu, during a visit to BYD.

This year, BYD entered the world’s ten largest automakers by sales for the first time, overtaking German carmakers Mercedes-Benz and BMW. In the first half of this year, BYD’s new vehicle sales rose 96 percent year on year to 1,25 million cars. Last year, BYD abandoned production of cars with internal combustion engines.

BYD ranked second behind Tesla in electric vehicle sales in the second quarter of this year, according to the electrec website. While the US automaker delivered 466.000 electric vehicles, BYD sold 352.000. Including hybrid vehicles, BYD would have overtaken Tesla with 703.500 vehicles.

This year, BYD announced that it would invest three billion reais (nearly CZK 14 billion) in Brazil to build a factory, its first outside Asia.

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