For the manufacturer, the plug-in hybrid offers the advantage of circumventing the protectionist measures put in place in Europe. In France, electric cars produced in China are no longer entitled to the ecological bonus, while the EU draws on the arsenal of increased customs duties, reaching 27% to 47% depending on the brand. So many constraints which do not affect hybrid models, which BYD intends to increase in the coming months, under its own brand and with its high-end Denza label.
These taxes do not fail to irritate Stella Li, vice-president of BYD, as she confided during an interview with Challenges. “European governments overreacted as they did during the era of Korean and Japanese brands. European policy is paradoxical: it seeks to limit CO emissions2 on the one hand, while blocking us, while we provide a solution with our electric cars! » To get around these barriers, BYD has already started building a factory in Hungary, which will come into service in 2025. Another, in Turkey, will follow, with a total capacity of 300,000 cars per year. “It’s a safe bet that this will not be enough in the future,” adds Stella Li, a sign of the Chinese manufacturer’s overflowing commercial ambitions.
The Seal U DM-i, BYD's first plug-in hybrid model sold in France, is helping sales take off. Credit: Nicolas Meunier/Challenges
To feed its appetite, BYD seems ready to make sacrifices, even if it means slashing its margins. The Chinese manufacturer is seeking at all costs to ensure that the price of its electric models remains competitive. This is why it offers strong discounts, which can exceed 20%, on certain models: 8,000 euros discount on the Atto 3 compact SUV, 7,000 euros on the Dolphin compact sedan, 4,000 euros on the Seal family sedan… A real policy scorched earth, which BYD can afford given its colossal size: more than three million cars sold in 2023, 90,000 engineers and, above all, a net profit of 1.6 billion dollars during the third quarter of 2024.
However, export sales are the thorn in the side of the Chinese giant, very dependent on its domestic market which represents 90% of its sales. In France, the threshold of 500 sales in October is therefore symbolic. The brand hoped for double with the launch of the Seal U DM-i plug-in hybrid. Over the first ten months of the year, BYD registered 2,968 cars in France, far from its initial target of 8,000 sales in 2024.
Bringing out a new brand takes time, the Chinese manufacturer seems to be aware of this. “We believe that the European market is essential. We want to do things the right way. We will have the patience necessary to establish ourselves there sustainably,” assures Stella Li. Behind the scenes, however, the story is not the same. “The pressure on sales volumes is real,” a distributor told us, on condition of anonymity.
