- Build Your Dreams (BYD), a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer, has expanded into Zambia in partnership with PEM (Pilatus Electric Mobility Zambia Limited). The BYD Zambia showroom is scheduled to launch on September 5, 2024.
- BYD will be selling three models in the country: the Dolphin, a sedan with a 420 km range; the ATTO 3, an SUV with a 420 km range; and the SEAL, with a 570 km range.
Before the September showroom launch, BYD has been training a team to assist customers after they purchase their EVs.
BYD is China’s best-selling automaker and brand. In December 2023, sales increased by 45%, bringing the year's total to 3,024,417 vehicles, up 61.9% from the previous year. In August 2024 alone, it announced achieving total monthly sales of 373,083 New Energy Vehicles.
This is not the first time the Chinese EV company has expanded into Africa. In January 2024, BYD announced its expansion into Rwanda. This came two years after it entered Kenya, another East African nation.
Moreover, in July 2023, BYD entered the South African market, introducing the Standard Range and Extended Range variants of its ATTO 3 model.
In addition to its expansion into Africa, BYD has been partnering with local EV companies, including BasiGo and Ampersand.
BasiGo, an EV company in Africa, uses BYD buses. In March 2023, Associated Vehicle Assemblers (AVA), an automobile company, announced it would assemble 130 electric vehicles in Kenya from BYD.
In June 2024, Kigali-based electric vehicle (EV) company Ampersand partnered with BYD to enhance electric motorbike development and deployment, where Ampersand will purchase batteries from BYD to build around 40,000 electric motorcycles by the end of 2026.
On the expansion into Zambia, Tue Nyboe Andersen, Executive Director of BYD, stated, “I started the journey of bringing BYD to Zambia four years ago, together with my wife Angelika, and with the encouragement of my father-in-law Joe Huwiler from Pilatus.
“We have created PEM, Pilatus Electric Mobility Zambia Limited, which is the electric mobility arm of Pilatus Engineering. It was a great experience to see my first BYD vehicle, and it fuelled me with further excitement and determination to bring BYD to Zambia.”
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