Is BYD wrong about what the French and Europeans want?

Can we succeed as an electric car manufacturer by offering something other than large SUVs and sedans? Not so sure. In any case, looking closely at the ranking of manufacturers on a global scale, those who sell the most electric cars are those which almost exclusively offer high-end models. Tesla, BYD, Geely, only SAIC can qualify this state of affairs a little. Look carefully, you will hardly find a cheap, mainstream vehicle from these brands. And if China remains the best equipped market in terms of light, accessible and compact electric vehicles, this is far from being the case in Europe where the offer is still in its infancy. On the other hand, the C and D segment is starting to be saturated by European or American representatives (Tesla). However, this does not prevent BYD from continuing to focus on these models. A sign of stubbornness?

The new BYD, another big electric

You only need to look at the best car sales in Europe to understand what Europeans expect: cars from the B or C segment but above all popular and relatively accessible cars. Sandero, Golf, Clio, 208, all these models clearly illustrate the expectations of the European. However, BYD and other Chinese manufacturers are taking the opposite path by focusing on ultra-technological products, fully equipped and above all quite expensive. Moreover, our colleagues at Auto-infos relay these words from analyst Jato Dynamics: “Most of (BYD’s) range is concentrated in the D segments with a lot of mid-size SUVs. In contrast, BYD offers very few models in the C segment with only the Atto 3 as the only compact SUV.”.

The new arrival at BYD symbolizes the current strategy of the Chinese. While we thought they would invade us with discounted electric vehicles and small cars, the Chinese are mostly doing the opposite. The Sealion 7 is therefore a new and umpteenth large-scale, high-power Chinese electric model with very unclear positioning. What competition is he targeting exactly? A bit of everything at the same time, between the “big” generalists and the premium, including Tesla.

Europeans expect something else

But this lack of image at the moment for BYD and this desire to always see the prism of electricity from above could do it a disservice. And for the moment, apart from Leapmotor which seems to have understood the challenges in Europe at the moment when Renault 5, Volkswagen ID.2 and other Citroën e-C3s are seeing the light of day, very few manufacturers in the Middle Kingdom seem to in line with local expectations. A speech given to us by the director of a large importer of vehicles for China in Europe on the occasion of the Paris Motor Show. “I keep telling my Chinese contacts that this is not what the Europeans want”he then explained to us. By insisting, he was able to obtain from his commercial partner the launch of cheaper and less powerful/equipped models.