The Chinese from Byd postpone the start of car production at the Hungarian plant and put another factory first
Byd Dolphin Surf (photo Vlad Barza)
The Chinese from Byd, who should soon have started the production of cars in Hungary, will postpone for 2026 that moment and at least two years the Szeged plant will produce well under capacity, say sources quoted by Reuters. Another new factory in the region will be placed in the first place.
The Chinese from Byd, who have launched in the spring and Romania, will give priority to the Turkish plant, which will make more cars than in Hungary.
The four billion euros plant that Byd builds in Szeged, southern Hungary, will start mass production in 2026, but in that year it will produce only a few tens of thousands of cars, said one of the sources quoted by Reuters. Production should have started in the fall of 2025.
That would mean only a fraction of the initial production capacity of 150,000 vehicles, planned by the byd. Subsequently, the Szeged plant would reach a maximum production capacity of 300,000 cars per year.
In Manisa, in Turkey, the investment passes one billion euros and the sources say that in 2027 the capacity will reach 150,000 cars, and will increase in 2028.
Byd builds the Hungarian factory to sell customs duties in the EU. All the cars they are currently selling in Europe are manufactured in China and are subject to the tariffs imposed by the EU on imports of electric vehicles produced in China, in addition to the standard 10%customs duty. In the case of byd, the total “tariff” reaches 27%.
Many of the cars manufactured at the new factory in Turkey will also be intended for the European market and will not be subject to tariffs to the export to the European Union.
A transition to a cheaper production in Turkey highlights the complications of Chinese car producers who want to build cars in Europe. In Hungary, wages are higher, as well as energy costs.
