Why a Chinese car battery plant in Hungary is not a good idea

Following concerns that Chinese EVs are flooding the European EV market, and amid the European Commission launching an electric vehicle (EV) probe, the Financial Times reported that German car suppliers are struggling to adjust to the shift from combustible engine to electric engines in vehicles.

But China is not the place to turn.

In November 2023, following the European Parliament issuing official notice of the European Commission’s EV probe in October 2023, Chinese car manufacturer Build Your Dreams (BYD) announced its plans to establish a factory in Hungary.

However, new Hong Kong Watch research exposes that BYD has extensive links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the Hong Kong government, which continue to act collectively to dismantle basic rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.

BYD’s leadership, including founder and current chief executive Wang Chuanfu, maintain numerous direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. In 2019, a report by Radarlock found that BYD has failed to publicly report the billions of subsidies that it has received from the government of the PRC.

In the same year, BYD jointly won the Chinese National State Council Progress Award with the State Administration for Science and Technology for National Defense (SASTIND) and a partner of the military Aviation Corporation of China (AVIC), which is an award granted to individuals or organisations that have made significant contributions to the scientific and technological development of China.

The battery technology of BYD is also a component of the CCP’s ‘Made in China 2025’ and ‘China Standards 2035’ plans, which seek to make China the leader of global high-tech manufacturing and encourage standardisation among Chinese enterprises, respectively.