00:00BYD is rapidly expanding into Europe with over 190,000 units registered at the end of last year.
00:09So what are the lessons learned and what is coming next? Well I'm absolutely delighted to
00:14now be sitting down with Stella Lee, Executive Vice President of BYD. Stella Lee, so wonderful
00:21to sit with you here at the World Government Summit. Now you very much started out as a battery
00:26company and you've moved into sort of shaping global mobility today. Tell us a little bit more
00:32about your plans for 2026 and why are SUVs in particular quite a key area for you? Yeah so I'd
00:39like to tell you some story. So even BYD started with battery company but our dream is always to
00:46produce electric car. So while it will continue growing bigger we went to public, we had the
00:51chance to buy the car company. Then we started saying finally we can do electric car inside BYD.
00:59Then we can realize every innovation we want for the electric car. So this kind of dream has never
01:05happened. It's never changed. It's never like a change. It's always electric car. So then today,
01:12but BYD is a technology company. Like we have more than eight, ten percent of BYD staff is R&D engineer.
01:20Till today, we have more than 120,000 R&D engineer. We submitted 52 patents per working days.
01:30So that's the reason you can call BYD, everything is better for us. We are an engineering company.
01:36Really interesting. So you actually knocked Tesla off the top spot. You're now in that top 10.
01:42How do you think that's happened and why is that? Yeah, because BYD is very, very strong for
01:48manufacturing capability. So BYD also is not a stranger to you. If you are using a lot of
01:55like a smartphone, one third of a global smartphone, the component or maybe the whole assembly are done
02:02by BYD. So BYD is very strong on tooling, very strong on the machinery, and very strong on the precise
02:10manufacturing with high quality. This is BYD DNA plus like innovation. This makes BYD is like a full
02:19electric car. We have a lot of innovation going on, become like a make BYD car is very intelligent.
02:25So we offer like a more than 13 different models to the customer in Europe and also GCC area. So then
02:34all BYD R&D engineers will focus on what the consumer needs. If the customer needs a very fancy
02:41sporty car, then we invent like a BYD U9 extreme version. It's with 3000 horsepower, can run 496.22
02:53kilometers per hour. It's the fastest car in the planet. Then customer concerned about safety, our
02:59young one, U9, U8 can swim in the water to deliver extreme safe condition to our customer. And then if
03:09you want like UBAN condition, just a small mileage, then we have the dolphin surf play very well in
03:16Europe. And it's like a people's favorite car for the UBAN. Then it's also received in this small sector,
03:24it's a five-star, like a European five-star NCAP test. And also it's been become the world UBAN
03:32car of 2025. So and then people concerned about the charging time, charging infrastructure, we invent
03:40DMI, it's PHEV. And then it means in the daily life you can rely on the battery per charge. You can get
03:4950 to 120 kilometers per charge. And then, but if you want to drive between like in France all the
03:57way to Norway, then it's become the PHEV car. And then one charge, one tank of gas, you can run more
04:04than 1,500 kilometers for our sales six performance. This is the kind of experience we just deliver to
04:12customer. Use all our technology, focus on what customer needs. Then we give you what you need,
04:19solve your problem. Also making you have a lot of fun in the car. So in BYD car, you can sit in
04:24karaoke, you can play game, then you can use V2G, then you can use autonomous parking. So all the cool
04:31feature is equipped in our car. Also another cool feature is other people cannot do like us is sitting
04:40in the car, just say hello BYD, it's too cold and then air conditioner will be on. Then it's too warm
04:46and they were like adding the temperature. And also then they can open the window. The whole experience,
04:53even you can order the coffee in the car. So the whole experience, you don't need to use your finger
04:59to touch any screen. Just use voice control. So a lot of technology, a lot of innovation. No wonder you're
05:05in that top 10 position. I wanted to look a little bit more into Europe and the European market for
05:11you because you've got a lot of, you know, there's higher electricity expense, very, very high prices
05:16compared to the US and China. How are you navigating that market? So you know BYD is a leading company for
05:22battery storage and also a leading company for solar panels. So now with the electricity so high,
05:29then we say why not to use BYD battery storage. We store electricity in the evening which is cheaper
05:36and then in the daytime we can like a release to customer. And also people concerned about the charging infrastructure,
05:43then about the fast charging. Then we invented the one megawatt charging. This is some technology
05:50really will become a game changer. It's a five minutes you can get 400 kilometers. It's a recharging is as
05:57faster as refueling. So we will invest like around the 3,000 this kind of charging place in Europe by
06:07end of this year. But this kind of flash charging is the BYD will invest and then we put also battery
06:14together then reduce the burden for the cost of electricity. So we hope through this investment we
06:22can really like a demonstrate. If you bring the whole ecosystem to the industry you can become
06:29bring the solution, reduce the electricity cost. Also like you have fun, solve people's concern.
06:37So how are you navigating trade tariffs, increased prices and things like that?
06:43The trade is always a short-term play. We don't support that. Also when we hurt the consumer. But the BYD is
06:50like a long vision player. So we four years ago we already decided to invest heavily in Europe and
06:59then we build up like a facility in Hungary. This facility I was there last week is already in the
07:06ramp-up stage and then I think in Q2 we're going to start like it have a lot of call or produce in Hungary.
07:15So what would you say are the key lessons learned when navigating that European market?
07:21I think for European market it's a very challenging market. You need to make sure you bring the good
07:28value to the market and also most important you need to bring the quality and also bring the good
07:34after-sales service. And then also we bring the technology to all the customers and the financial
07:41solution. So it's very complicated. Then for BYD we have a long-term commitment for the Europe and also
07:48GCC area. So we will bring a lot of fun technology to the to consumer. Make people wow what kind of
07:55car? Well what kind of technology? Makes them really falling in love with BYD car.
08:01So we're seeing AI being integrated into everything from manufacturing to mobility to everything else.
08:07How are you integrating AI? Is that something you're you're looking at at the moment?
08:11Yeah well as a technology company we invest a lot of R&D resources for AI even for robotic. So for
08:18example in the AI already inside our car so a lot of like a like a when you're asking in the in the car
08:28is they say asking what's the today's news? What are I going to do? They will do the self like a like a trip
08:35planning also will become your assistant to when you're driving they will talking to you and they
08:41share all the information. This is the consumer can experience right but then a lot of stuff behind
08:48is a lot of AI technology. We're even talking about the new program we're going to launch in next year
08:54is after sales program. So the people if they have the trouble on the car they can use picture. The car
09:01world like a our like a infotainment system will teach them how to do the simple repair on the car. So
09:09also use the cell phone they can do whatever they can then they don't need even talking to our after
09:14sales people through the AI technology. Somebody virtually can teach them they can talk to them
09:20guide them it's just like a mentor teach them how to repair the car. This one makes people is very simple
09:27easy to fix a lot of stuff and they improve efficiency and then besides this one and also in the whole
09:33company in manufacturing procedure we already implement a lot of AI technology here and also
09:41robotic yeah to improve our efficiency for the manufacturing process. Final question we're here at
09:47the World Government Summit here in Dubai tell us a little bit more about what this market in this region
09:52means to you as well. Wow this market is amazing I feel the energy and then for the like a technology
10:00for data center for innovation for autonomous driving so we really we already have a national partnership
10:07with the UAE government for the battery storage and then we're going to be more deeper to invest more
10:14here on the autonomous driving and the robotic and also AI technology here it's the home line it's the
10:21dream line here I you know BYD stands for build your dreams then I tell my team say hey here's the
10:29really dream line you can be as crazy as our engineer and make everything happen in here. Very innovative
10:37indeed well thank you so much for joining us really such a pleasure to speak to you thank you so much
10:42thank you
10:51thank you
10:55you
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