By Alzira Rodrigues | 8/17/23 | Translated by Jorge Meditsch

BYD’s R$ 3 billion investment plan in Camaçari, BA, to produce electrified cars, bus chassis and electric trucks includes creating a Research and Development center in Brazil to develop and adapt products to fit the Brazilian and other South American markets.

Alexandre Baldyn, BYD board chairman in Brazil, told on Thursday, 8/17, at an event in São Paulo that all the brand’s hybrid cars to be produced in Brazil will be ethanol flex-fuel.

executive said the Brazilian president, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, asked the company to make all its Brazilian hybrids ethanol flex-fuel when he met in China BYD’s main world executives. “We will have an R&D center at Bahia’s Silicon Valley”, said Baldyn.

At the event in São Paulo, it was made clear that BYD’s plant will be at the former Ford facilities in Camaçari. The American manufacturer returned the facilities and land to Bahia’s government, which is now evaluating the amount to be paid to Ford to be lately covered by the Chinese manufacturer.

About the Brazilian tax reform, which according to the text approved by the Chamber of Deputies cancels the extension of incentives benefitting North-Eastern states up to 2032, BYD’s representative said that, if maintained by the Senate, it can take to a reduction in the investment in Brazil, but would not cancel it.

The announcement that BYD’s plant would be in Camaçari was made last month without confirming it would be at Ford’s facilities, when the Chinese brand informed the operations should start in the second half of 2024 and create five thousand jobs.

BYD’s project initial capacity would be 150 thousand units a year and, in a second step, nearly 300 thousand. The company will also process lithium and iron phosphate, looking to the external market.

Among the tax incentives given to BYD to invest in Bahia, there is a 95% ICMS (merchandise and services circulation tax) until 2032. Bahia’s governor also announced the exemption of the vehicle property tax in the state for electric models up to R$ 300 thousand, a measure still depending on approval by the state parliament.

 

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