A small electric vehicle is having a big impact on the global automotive industry.
It isn’t the EV itself that is creating a sensation, but its price and potential to disrupt domestic automotive industries around the world.
The China-built BYD Seagull, a small all-electric hatchback, starts at just less than $10,000 and reportedly banks a profit for the continuously influential Chinese automaker.
Auto executives and politicians, from all around the world, are on edge about EV profits, where US auto manufacturers have largely failed to turn a profit, in combination with the expansion of Chinese auto manufacturers into Europe, Latin America, and other parts of the world.
A former General Motors Executive, who now serves as president of automotive at engineering consulting firm Caresoft Global, Terry Woychowski, said the Seagull could be “a call to action to the rest of the auto industry, according to CNBC
Though the Seagull isn’t yet sold on U.S. soil, BYD is expanding its vehicles globally, and some believe it’s only a matter of time before more China-made vehicles arrive in the U.S.
Even though the Seagull is not yet sold on American soil, BYD has expanded its vehicles around the world and some believe it’s only a matter of time before more Chinese cars are imported to America.
Global car manufacturers fear that their markets could be flooded by rivals from China, such as Warren Buffett’s backing of BYD, who would undercut local production and vehicle prices to the detriment of their industry.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy group, said in a report last month that “The introduction of cheap Chinese autos — which are so inexpensive because they are backed with the power and funding of the Chinese government — to the American market could end up being an extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector.”
By the end of last year, BYD had sold 1.57 million battery-electric vehicles, up from only 130,970 all-electric cars in 2020. By the end of 2023, this increase in sales would have made it possible to overtake Tesla as the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer.
The rise of BYD and other Chinese automakers led Tesla CEO Elon Musk in January to warn that Chinese automakers will “demolish” global rivals without trade barriers.
Caresoft, digitally and physically analyzes every part of a vehicle, from bolts and latches to seats, motors, and battery casings. It then determines how its clients – mainly automakers and suppliers – can improve efficiencies and cut costs in their products.
Its initial study of the BYD Seagull found it to be efficiently and simplistically designed, engineered, and executed, but with unexpected quality and anticipated reliability.
“What they did do is done very well,” Woychowski said. “It’s efficiently done.”
“We are very concerned about China bigfooting our industry in the United States even as we are building up now this incredible backbone of manufacturing,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on March 6 during a discussion panel at an Axios event.
