India denies BYD bid to build factory

Together with its Indian partner Megha Engineering and Infrastructure (MEIL), BYD wanted to invest around one billion US dollars (890 million euros) in a new production facility for electric cars and batteries in India. But the government there has now rejected the partners’ application.

One reason cited was that “Security concerns with respect to Chinese investments in India were flagged during the deliberations”, as India’s The Economic Times reports. An official told the newspaper, “Existing rules in India do not allow such investments.” India’s government changed its foreign direct investment policy in April 2020 to require government approval for investments from countries that share a land border with India.

As reported last week, in addition to the planned plant in Hyderabad, BYD and Megha also wanted to install charging stations in India and build research, development and training centres. As Reuters had written at the time, citing government documents, a joint venture was also to be set up to operate the electric car and battery plant.

BYD already sells the Atto 3 electric SUV and the e6 electric sedan to corporate fleets in India. The company had actually planned to launch its first mass-market electric car in India in 2023. Whether that will happen after the cancellation of the factory plans is currently unclear

BYD had already announced some time ago that it wanted to set up production in India. With the plans for its own factory, the company would have competed directly with Tesla. It was recently reported that Tesla has started negotiations with the Indian government to build a factory with an annual capacity of 500,000 electric cars.

indiatimes.com (Paywall) via businesstoday.in