Alexandre Baldy, senior vice president of the Brazilian company of Chinese electric car maker BYD, revealed that its new factory in Brazil will start assembling electric vehicles as early as this month. BYD’s move is aimed at reducing its reliance on imported vehicles as import tariffs in Brazil, its largest overseas market, begin to rise. Alexandre Baldy said the company plans to assemble 50,000 vehicles from imported parts kits at its Bahia plant in 2025, and revealed that it is currently negotiating with the Brazilian government to reduce the tax rate on these vehicles. Alexandre Baldy said: “We will hold a ceremony to inaugurate the factory in the next few days.” But he has not yet specified a specific date because the factory is still awaiting final regulatory approval. He added: “We have fully utilized the window period before the import tariff increase on July 1 to complete the import of complete vehicles this year.” According to Reuters’ forecasts, BYD has exported a large number of complete vehicles to Brazil this year to take advantage of the temporary low tariff policy dividend, exporting about 22,000 vehicles from China to Brazil in the first five months alone. This practice has raised questions in the Brazilian auto industry, believing that BYD prefers local manufacturing in China rather than local production in Bahia. It is reported that BYD’s Bahia factory construction plan has been delayed. In May this year, the Minister of Labor of Bahia said that the factory would not be “fully operational” until the end of 2026.
However, Alexandre Baldy stressed that BYD’s Bahia factory will start full production in July 2026 after CKD assembly in the next 12 months. He pointed out that once the Camacari Industrial Park in Bahia is fully operational, it is expected to create up to 20,000 direct and indirect jobs.
It is worth noting that BYD’s Camacari is its first factory outside of Asia. It is reported that the annual production capacity of the factory will reach 150,000 vehicles after it goes into production, and BYD plans to expand the annual production capacity of the factory to 300,000 vehicles in about two years. BYD Executive Vice President Li Ke previously said that BYD has planned to double the annual production capacity of the factory again in the future, but has not yet disclosed more details.
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