BYD plans to build US battery plant

Agencies and staff reporter

BYD (1211) is considering building a battery plant in the US but doesn't currently plan on selling its electric cars there, a top executive said, while laying out a case for tweaks to Biden's Inflation Reduction Act that seeks to limit reliance on China.

"Currently we don't plan on selling in the US, we need a better understanding of what the next steps are," BYD executive vice president Stella Li said in an interview Tuesday. "We'll continue to invest in electric school buses and also battery components but for consumer cars, we haven't got a decision yet."

Meanwhile, the automaker will sell its electric vehicles in Malaysia in a 500 million ringgit (HK$885.3 million) tie-up with Sime Darby Motors.

Sime Darby will be BYD's exclusive distributor in Malaysia, with the first showroom to open later this month, the companies said in a statement yesterday. They plan to have 20 dealerships by next year, and 40 by 2024, they said.

This came as China's Passenger Car Association's data showed retail sales of passenger cars in China slipped 9.5 percent year-on-year to 1.67 million units in November as lockdowns due to the country's still strict approach to Covid kept buyers away from showrooms.

Great Wall Motor (2333) said its car sales last month plunged 28.5 percent year-on-year to 87,560 units.

Separately, Bloomberg said Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has roped in longtime executive and the company's president in China, Tom Zhu Xiaotong, to help run the carmaker's new plant in Austin, Texas.