BYD will soon complete the construction of its plant in Hungary, which will have an initial capacity of 200,000 units per year, and has now announced the start of production from October 2025. This is part of the big plan of the Chinese car manufacturer, which intends to enter the top five best-selling brands in Europe by 2030.

After the introduction of additional tariffs (17%) on imported EVs from China, many Chinese manufacturers started looking for partners or made plans to start production on the soil of the old continent. One of them is BYD, which will have plants in Szeged and Turkey. Initially, BYD will produce the Dolphin and Atto 3 models in Hungary, while the plant in Turkey will start operating in March 2026. Together, these two plants will have a production capacity of 500,000 cars per year.

At the end of 2024, in an interview for the German business magazine Capital, BYD’s European head, Stella Li, stated that the initial plan was to start with the cheap model Seagull, but it was estimated that larger and more expensive models will have better sales, such as the Dolphin and Atto 3. The Seagull will be the fourth model in the fleet of cars to be produced in Hungary, and BYD plans to increase the fleet to 12 models.

The European market is very important for Chinese companies, and in 2024, BYD sold more than 50,000 new EVs in Europe. That’s three times more than in 2023, and with two new plants in Europe, the numbers will definitely go up.

Source: Automotive News Europe, Capital