A drone view shows BYD electric vehicles before being loaded onto the BYD Explorer No.1 roll-on, roll-off vehicle carrier for export to Brazil, at the port of Lianyungang in Jiangsu province, China on April 25.Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturing giant BYD Co. expects to enter the Canadian market, according to a filing with a federal regulator – a development that comes as Ottawa contemplates trade action against made-in-China EVs.
Ottawa is looking at a surtax, Ms. Freeland has said, because Chinese vehicles are being overproduced and flooding global markets. Such a measure, however, would be at odds with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s goal of encouraging EV adoption by Canadians. “BYD, unlike Tesla or other Western-based automakers, uses lowest price points as their main entry strategy into new markets,” he said. “BYD’s competitive advantage is the dramatically subsidized cost structure and supply chain that China first deployed to collapse the West’s electronic goods sector.”
An auto industry source said that they heard representatives for BYD were in Windsor, Ont., last week talking to potential parts suppliers. The Globe is not identifying the source because they were not authorized to publicly share this information.. In May it unveiled the Shark, a mid-size hybrid-electric pickup truck, and its regional chief brushed off new U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese EVs, saying the company was not eyeing an entry to the U.S. market.
BYD chose Mexico because of the rapid growth in demand for pickup trucks in the country, Chief of Americas Stella Li said.