BYD plays pivotal role in Brazil's transport future

BYD Auto Co Ltd, the Shenzhen-based electric vehicle and solar panel manufacturer, expects to open its first factory in Brazil later this year, allowing it to play a key role in the modernization of the giant Latin American country's urban transport network.

Adalberto Maluf Filho, the company's director of marketing and governmental affairs in Brazil, said that BYD expects to supply many non-polluting buses and taxis to large cities such as Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city in Brazil, and Sao Paulo, the most populous.

As most of Brazil's larger cities do not have major subway networks - Sao Paulo has only four lines, for instance, while Rio has just two - its public transportation network is in urgent need of update.

This lack of major urban rail infrastructure has meant a historically high demand for buses, and electric buses particularly are being viewed as an increasingly appealing option to cut emissions in massive cities.

BYD is part of a consortium that won a bid last week to develop a car-sharing scheme in Rio, initially with a fleet of 300 electric cars. It worked on the project's implementation studies, said Maluf, meaning it played a leading role in that, and hopefully will lead similar projects in future.

BYD is building a factory in Campinas, in Sao Paulo state, which will be operational by the middle of this year, which will be responsible for battery and solar panel production and the assembly of electric buses using imported parts.

A second factory, to be built in Sao Paulo or possibly in the neighboring states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, will build the bus chassis, which will reduce the production costs of the vehicles.

The company's battery cells, currently being made in China, South Korea, Japan and the United States, will also eventually be produced in the factory to cut costs further.

Electric vehicles are more expensive than conventional cars and buses driven by fossil fuels, so BYD plans to offer leasing options to its Brazilian customers, which will see its cars (less the battery) sold at the same price as a regular car. The same is being planned for electric buses.

In both cases, the batteries themselves will be leased at a rate commensurate with what customers could expect to save on fuel.

Maluf called it "the best deal in the world" for taxi drivers, particularly, given what they generally have to pay for their vehicles and what they spend on fuel.

Several Brazilian cities have so far been testing the use of BYD-built electric buses.

The authorities in Campinas and Sao Paulo, both in Sao Paulo state, have agreed to buy fleets of BYD electric buses with other cities like Rio in negotiations to buy, said Maluf, adding the company expects to be able to have provided a large fleet nationally by early 2016, in time for the Olympic Games in Rio.