Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD on Saturday announced plans to open a car production plant in Pakistan, where it will also start selling three models through a partnership with Mega Motors.

BYD is the first major new electric vehicle (NEV) entrant in the Pakistani market, where there is a lack of charging infrastructure.

“Our entry into the Pakistani market is not just about bringing advanced vehicles to consumers,” said Liu Xueliang, BYD’s general manager for Asia Pacific.

“It’s about driving a broader vision of environmental responsibility and technological innovation.”

BYD also plans to open three “flagship stores and experience centres” in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, the company said at a launch event in Lahore, adding it plans to start selling two SUV models and a sedan from the fourth quarter of 2024.

Mega Motors is a unit of Pakistan’s largest private utility Hub Power Co Ltd, known as Hubco.

“We will establish Pakistan’s first NEV assembly plant... dedicated to producing BYD’s cutting-edge new energy vehicles,” said Hubco Chief Executive Kamran Kamal, who described the deal as a “landmark investment”.

The new plant will begin operations in 2026, Kamal told Reuters.

Hubco will setup fast-charging stations across major cities, motorways and highways to enhance Pakistan’s charging infrastructure.

A week earlier, China’s electric vehicle (EV) giant BYD launched a new version of its Seal EV, the company’s first model equipped with lidar sensors.

The 2025 version of Seal will sell for prices starting at 175,800 yuan ($24,515.41), BYD said on its social media account.

China’s BYD posted a 21% rise in second-quarter electric vehicle sales, closing the gap with Tesla after handing back the world’s top EV vendor title to the US rival in the first quarter.

BYD sold 426,039 EVs in the April-June quarter, according to Reuters’ calculations based on its monthly sales reports. That is almost 18,000 vehicles fewer than Tesla’s vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, but far closer than the more than 86,000 gap in the prior quarter.

Tesla’s second-quarter deliveries fell by a smaller than expected 4.8% to 443,956 vehicles on Tuesday, but that still marked the first time the US firm posted two straight quarters of decline as it deals with stiff competition in China and slow demand due to a lack of affordable new models. Price cuts and incentives helped Tesla beat expectations, however, pushing shares up about 5% in morning trading.Tesla’s China-made EV sales in June fell 24.2% from a year earlier to 71,007, according to data from China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), extending a year-on-year decline for a third month.

Tesla has hit a speed bump after years of rapid growth that helped make it the world’s most valuable automaker. It warned in January that deliveries growth in 2024 would be “notably lower” as a boost from months-long price cuts wanes.

Separately, global sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose by a yearly 21% in July, thanks to China’s strongest growth this year and despite dropping demand in Europe, market research firm Rho Motion said Monday.

In the European Union MG Motor, owned by China’s SAIC Motor Corp, expects to be hit hardest by provisional tariffs imposed on EVs imported from China, Rho Motion data manager Charles Lester told Reuters.

The impact of the tariffs should be smaller on Tesla, which can produce in its Berlin factory, and Chinese EV giant BYD, whose presence in Europe remains small, Lester said.

EVs - whether fully electric (BEV) or plug-in hybrids (PHEV) - sold worldwide were at 1.35 million in July, of which 0.88 million were in China, where they were up 31% year-on-year, the data showed.

PHEVs sold in China in the first seven months of 2024 were up 70% from last year.

BYD, China’s and the world’s biggest EV maker, reported in the same period increases of 13% and 44% in its global BEV and PHEV sales, respectively.

In Europe, monthly sales were down 7.8% in July, to year-to-date figures in line with 2023. In the seven months to July, they dropped by 12% in Germany, the EU’s biggest EV market.

In the United States and Canada, EV sales were up 7.1% in July.

Agencies