BYD Restarts Full Output in Xi'an While Chasing 2.5 Million Overseas Sales
Published on 09/26/2026 at 06:32 | Editorial boerse-global.de
BYD is hiring more than 8,000 additional workers at its main production hub in Xi'an, a move that restores full operating capacity at the company's largest manufacturing site even as it pushes deeper into foreign markets.
The recruitment drive focuses on skilled labor for welding, painting and final assembly. It marks a return to normal output across all four phases of the Xi'an complex, which together can turn out up to 1.5 million vehicles a year. Activity there had slowed during recent retooling of assembly lines and the switchover to the second generation of BYD's in-house Blade battery. Industry service providers now report that every sub-plant is running at standard levels again.
Export Records Offset a Cooling Home Market
The production ramp-up follows a marked shift in where BYD's cars are being sold. Global deliveries of vehicles with alternative drivetrains reached 440,293 units in August, up 17.8 percent from a year earlier. Sales in China's fiercely contested domestic market fell 14.3 percent, while overseas shipments jumped 134.5 percent to a record 189,466 units.
That export figure equates to growth of 134.45 percent year-on-year, lifting the overseas share of August sales to 43.03 percent. The broader Chinese auto industry is contending with weak consumer sentiment: passenger car sales in the country dropped by nearly a quarter in August compared with the same month last year, according to figures from the industry association CAAM.
Against that backdrop, foreign shipments are becoming an increasingly important crutch for Chinese manufacturers. BYD continues to build key components mainly at home, with international sites in Thailand, Brazil and Hungary intended primarily for final assembly.
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Capacity Abroad, Pressure From Tariffs
To handle the export volumes, BYD is investing in plants on several continents. A new factory has begun production in Indonesia, while output at the Brazilian site is being stepped up toward an eventual annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles. European manufacturing in Hungary is scheduled to start in November or December.
Trade policy is complicating the picture. The United States applies special tariffs of 100 percent, and additional European Union duties of up to 38 percent weigh on margins for imported vehicles. To work around those barriers, management has announced plans to build local production chains, saying that three assembly plants and a dedicated battery factory will be needed to gradually manufacture units sold in Europe on the continent.
Logistics remain a bottleneck. The order backlog for fast-charging models stands at roughly 250,000 vehicles, caused by delays in supplying the second-generation Blade battery. Management expects to clear those supply constraints only in the first quarter of 2027.
New Models and In-House Chips
At home, BYD is broadening its lineup. In early September the company unveiled the Sealion 08 SUV as the new flagship of its Ocean series, offered with five or six seats at prices ranging from 229,900 yuan to 279,900 yuan. Every variant uses the second-generation Blade battery and supports fast charging, with a choice of pure-electric and plug-in hybrid drivetrains and a range of up to 900 kilometers on China's CLTC standard.
The group's semiconductor arm has also started series production of a 4D millimeter-wave radar chip. The sensor, intended for driver-assistance systems, is based on BYD's own Xuanji-A3 processor.
Looking further ahead, vice president Stella Li has held out the start of series production of the company's first vehicle with a solid-state battery in 2027. Analysts at Deutsche Bank expect BYD to move quickly on building its own network of ultra-fast charging stations, expanding to 90,000 locations by the end of 2028.
On the political front, Bloomberg reported on September 16 that government officials in Beijing were weighing whether to include BYD in a business delegation accompanying President Xi Jinping to a summit with Donald Trump in Washington.
The stock closed at EUR 8.84 on Friday, leaving it down 17 percent since the start of the year. In European trading it was recently quoted 0.9 percent lower at EUR 8.83, with sentiment staying subdued even as the company presses ahead with its expansion.
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