“Todd pooled together $20 million from a mix of lenders, keen investors and his own savings and flew to China to meet with the chairman in a bid to launch #BYD in #Australia under a third-party distributorship.

He proposed that under a new company, #EVDirect, he would convert BYD cars from left-to right-hand drive in Australia using local engineering firms.

But the chairman had a different plan. Todd says BYD would eventually pour “10-times” the amount that Todd and his lenders had stumped up to *set up the company’s first right-hand-drive assembly line* in China to service #Australia and #NewZealand.

As part of the agreement, EVDirect was granted exclusive #DistributionRights. Under a #JointVenture with retail giant Eagers Automotive, known as EVDealer Group, BYD would sell more than 50,000 cars in Australia between February 2022 and July 2025 to the value of about $3 billion.”

The UK, French, USA all gave gave away the Australian car market.

#EV / #ElectricCars / #batteries < https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/built-in-52-seconds-how-byd-is-using-australia-to-capture-the-globe-20251104-p5n7qs> / <https://archive.md/tdRvV>