Is BYD owned by Mercedes? Mercedes-Benz, a German luxury car manufacturer, revealed on September 17 in 2024 that it had withdrawn from its joint venture with BYD, a major Chinese pure electric vehicle (EV) company. The joint venture between the two parties is engaged in the development and production of high-end EVs. Due to unsuccessful cooperation, Mercedes-Benz reduced its investment ratio from 50% to 10% in 2021. The remaining 10% of shares were sold this time.
According to Mercedes-Benz, 10% of the shares have been sold to BYD. The joint venture has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of BYD.
The joint venture develops and produces the high-end EV “Denza”. Mercedes-Benz admitted on September 17 that it had withdrawn from the joint venture business, and on this basis stated that “the current models of Denza are no longer equipped with Mercedes-Benz technology.”
The joint venture was established in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in 2011 with BYD and Germany’s Daimler (now Mercedes-Benz) each contributing half. However, the cooperation in technology and other aspects is difficult to get on track, and the sales volume in 2021 is only 5,000. For this reason, Mercedes-Benz will reduce its investment ratio from 50% to 10% in 2021, reducing its participation in the joint venture.
After BYD took control of the management, the situation of the joint venture improved. Sales doubled to 10,000 vehicles in 2022 and surged to 128,000 vehicles in 2023, an increase of 26 times. BYD’s cooperation with Mercedes-Benz is considered to have almost stopped.
The original joint venture will continue to expand its business with the full support of BYD. It plans to launch more than 10 models such as EV and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHV) in the Chinese market this year, and also plans to expand business in overseas markets such as Europe and Australia. However, the EU plans to impose a tariff of up to 36.3% on EVs imported from China, which may bring difficulties to exports.
Is BYD owned by Mercedes? Mercedes-Benz also has joint ventures in China with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a private Chinese automaker, and Beijing Automotive Group, a state-owned automaker. The joint venture with Geely develops and produces the EV version of the small car “smart” and has started global sales.
Leave a Reply