Elon Musk laughed at them in 2011, they have been frowned upon and linked to forced labour. A Norwegian expert believes that the Chinese brand can become as well known as Toyota in this country.
BYD has been launched in Norway since 2021. The new Seal model will compete with Tesla’s Model 3. Sea Lion – which will aim at the Model Y – will come later. Photo: LEONHARD SIMON / Reuters
Sea view
-
Eric B. Utheim
Published: 17/02/2024 18:25
– We got a lot of pepper at the start. “Car from China, it’s crazy” …
Egg farmer Morten Aasheim has just bought his third Chinese electric car. Next week, a brand new BYD Han will arrive at the farm outside Steinkjer.
By then, the car brand had sold just over 5,000 cars in Norway.
On a global basis, however, it is different, where sales have exploded.
Just before Christmas, Tesla himself passed by, and took over the throne as the world’s largest electric car manufacturer. In last year’s fourth quarter, they sold 525,409 electric cars in the world, Tesla sold “only” 484,507.
Become as famous as Toyota?
Aasheim still gets questions about which car he drives. People don’t recognize it.
– But the skepticism is less. My impression is that the China brands are clearly more accepted now. There was a lot of negativity in the beginning, but it’s not like that toillat seasays the trønder.
With his wife prompting him, he adds that they have never regretted it.
But how big can the brand get? Is BYD on the threshold of becoming a name that “everyone” has heard of? A bit like when Tesla came from nowhere in 2010? Or when Japanese cars, with great skepticism, came to Europe in their time?
– There is a new Toyota in the works, says Atle Falch Tuverud.
He is managing director of Bilforlaget, which publishes several Norwegian car publications, among them Bilnytt.
– I don’t know if it is Tesla or Toyota that is the comparison in Norway, but BYD is nowhere near its potential yet.
All in all, Build Your Own Dreams, as they are actually called, only has about one percent of the electric car population in Norway, Tesla 17.
But the trend is rising.
In 2023, three percent of new electric cars were new electric cars The figures refer to official statistics from the Road Traffic Information Council (OFV) regarding first-time registered new electric cars. registered in Norway a BYD. If you combine the many Chinese brands and Chinese brandsBYD, Chery, DFSK, Geely, HiPhi, Hongqi, JAC, Lotus, Maxus, MG, Nio, Polestar, Seres, Voyah and XPeng are all electric car brands that are wholly or partly Chinese, and which has been launched in Norway. who have arrived, they totaled almost fifteen percent.
BYD founder Wang Chuanfu has been described as a “modern day Henry Ford” by the Washington Post. Photo: Wikicommons
Sea view
Controversial
Aftenposten wrote on Friday how the company’s buses have become linked to possible forced labour. 22 BYD buses run in scheduled traffic in Oslo.
The background is one rapport about the working conditions at Chinese electric bus manufacturers ordered by Swedish public transport companies.
The allegations concern both systematic exploitation, low pay and a dangerous working environment.
BYD has not responded to Aftenposten’s inquiries about the bus report, but to the Swedish professional journal Bussmagasinet they have replied that the image of the company does not match. They point out that they have one Corporate Social Responsibility Policy which prevents both themselves and subcontractors from forced labour.
Senior adviser Anders Hovde at the consultancy company Kantar has worked extensively with analysis of the Norwegian car market.
– What we know is that there is a fairly large proportion of Norwegian car buyers who are skeptical of China as a manufacturing country.
He mentions both technological quality, data security and ethics.
– The Chinese cars are not the first choice, at the same time many are pragmatic at the time of purchase. And the cars from China offer a lot of car for the money.
Fact
Build Your Own Dreams – BYD
Started by chemist Wang Chuanfu in China’s technology capital Shenzhen in 1995. Then with only 20 employees, and as a battery manufacturer. Not for vehicles, but mobile phones.
Only in 2002, after they had been listed on the stock exchange in Hong Kong, did they move into the world of cars. Then they bought up a small manufacturer called Xi’an Qinchuan. In the following years, both buses and passenger cars came.
Today they make batteries for vehicles, electric cars, buses and trucks – and have 230,000 employees and Warren Buffet as an investor.
As recently as 2020, when they launched their own electric car battery called Blade, BYD sold 130,000 cars a year. Last year, the number had increased to 1.57 million.
Sea view
Atle Falch Tuverud is editor-in-chief of Bilnytt. – Tesla’s surprising price shock in January last year was a response to BYD’s price war in China – which spread all the way to us. It is BYD and other Chinese players that Elon Musk is afraid of. Photo: Bilforlaget
Sea view
Local dealer important
Back to farmer Morten Aasheim in Steinkjer. He admits that he got “a little nervous” when many people had an idea about his car purchase three years ago.
The family has five boys, and was looking for an electric car with seven seats when they bought the BYD SUV Tang three years ago. Recently the family switched to a smaller Han. In between, they also bought a second car, also a BYD – of the Atto model.
– Several were skeptical about the second-hand value. We bought a car for 700,000, and when we trade in, we take a loss of less than 60,000 a year for the three years we’ve had it. I think the loss on a BMW or Audi would be greater.
All three were bought from a well-known dealer in Namsos. Atle Falch Tuverud believes that this is essential:
– If a well-known car chain in Norway sells these cars, it gives credibility. The fact that many large Norwegian dealers take in Chinese cars shows that the car industry believes in this, he says.
– Chinese cars do not enter the European market more slowly than the Japanese and Korean ones did in their time, quite the opposite. The only specter is geopolitics.
Musk with the laugh in his throat
Back in 2011, Tesla’s strongman is having fun of the thought of the Chinese going past his own company.
– Have you seen their cars? said Elon Musk in a TV interview with CNBC at the time, a clip that went viral on social media, not least Musk’s own, when BYD passed by now in December,
– I don’t think they are particularly attractive, Musk said.
Now the pipe has a different sound:
In connection with the presentation of Tesla’s last quarterly report in 2023, Musk said that Chinese car manufacturers will “crush” global competitors if trade barriers are not introduced.
Batteridominans
China’s rise in the electric car market has two key factors: An enormous domestic market, and a dominant position in battery production.
Partly state-owned CATLCAT The company Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) supplies batteries or battery components for a number of electric vehicles, including from BMW, Tesla, Honda, Hyundai and Volvo, to name a few. is the world’s largest battery manufacturer for vehicles, with a market share estimated at 37 percent on a worldwide basis. BYD is in second place with a good 15.
Together, the two Chinese giants have more than half of the market. It has been reported that they have cut prices for Chinese car manufacturers. Such subsidization can be done in a one-party state.
Senior advisor Ståle Frydenlund at the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association acknowledges that China’s dominance on the battery side is a success factor.
– But it is not necessarily a plus seen from our part of the world. It would have been an advantage if the battery resources were more evenly distributed over the planet.
Fact
Electric car giant China
The Norwegian analysis company Rystad estimates that 17.5 million electric cars will be sold worldwide in 2024, an increase of 18.5 percent.
The proportion of electric cars or plug-in hybrids will increase from 19.2 per cent in 2023 to around 21.8 per cent at the end of the year this year.
China will carry the bulk of the load. Rystad predicts that 11.5 million electric cars will be sold in China, i.e. 44 percent of all new cars in the world.
China’s dominance in the electric car sector is highlighted by the fact that 69 percent of all new electric cars sold in December were sold in China.
Sea view
2024-02-17 17:25:19
#heard #car #brand #today #Norwegian #expert #believes #Toyota #years
