BYD to challenge Tesla: to build China's "gigafactory"

BYD said in Friday that it plans to expand its battery capacity by 3 times times by 2020 to challenge Tesla in the field of electric vehicles.

BYD U.S. company spokesman Matthew Jurjevich issued a statement that in the next three years will be new 6 Kyrgyzstan/MW (gigawatt Hour/gwh) battery capacity, if demand is strong, will continue to expand the battery at that rate, "we have verified that, Under strong market demand, BYD has the ability to add 6,000 megawatts of battery capacity each year. ”

That means BYD's battery capacity will rise from 10,000 MW at the end of this year to 34,000 MW in early 2020. Tesla will produce its own battery at the Nevada plant in 2016, and its capacity will reach 35,000 MW by 2020. The two are very close.

In the emerging power storage market, BYD and Tesla have become two key manufacturers. The size of the U.S. market will rise from $128 million trillion in 2014 to $1.5 billion trillion in 2019, according to GTM data. BYD, now the world's sixth-largest hybrid and electric-car battery maker, has yet to produce its own batteries, and Panasonic, which supplies 18650 of its batteries, is now the first in the market.

BYD is able to seize the initiative in the new energy sector, and its global strategy is inseparable. In North America, BYD's customers are more companies like colleges and subways than individual consumers, March 14, Uber announced a partnership with BYD to launch electric taxis, Stanford campus also ran 13 BYD Electric bus K9. In London, BYD delivered 200 electric cars to Thriev, a private car-rental company in the city, with hundreds of BYD E6 in South America, Hong Kong and other parts of Europe. The Rio municipal government is also discussing electric taxis and bus projects with BYD.

In order to supply these overseas projects to the demand for batteries, BYD is also starting in China outside the base, in some key markets set up factories. In 2013, BYD set up two factories in Lancaster, Southern California, mainly producing electric bus K9 and batteries. In addition, BYD's Electric bus factory and Research and Development Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, will be officially completed in June this year, with an annual output of 500 vehicles.

Last December 31, BYD set up an iron battery pit base in Shenzhen, mainly for the development, production and sales of power batteries, which can provide batteries for about 25,000 buses or 600,000 hybrid cars, according to BYD, the base will become the world's largest power battery production base. Whether this factory can become China's "gigafactory", it is possible to set the first observation cycle to the end of this year.