BYD's Global Rise, 1MW Charging & the Future of EVs!

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1:14Hello and welcome to another fabulous episode of the Everything Electric podcast. Today we're talking about BYD, pretty soon to become probably one of the biggest car companies in the world. I'm hedging my bets a bit there because, you know, I don't want to be inaccurate. Like, I've never done that before. Anyway, BYD, a global company doing incredible developments of battery technology of electric cars, of static batteries, which we will hear about, of incredibly fast charging, which we'll also hear about. Today's guest is Sajid Hassan, who is the chief product officer for BYD in Australia and New Zealand.

1:56And Australia is really a kind of a test bed, I'm now understanding, for particularly Chinese cars. You know, they will export them to China before we get them in this country. So they're getting a lot of stuff that will eventually come to Europe and maybe Canada, interestingly. That's going to be very interesting. I think there's some moves afoot to remove the ridiculous, sorry, the very sensible tariffs on Chinese vehicles in the North American continent. So, you see, I'm being geographical rather than nationalistic. But it does sound like Canada are rethinking the following in the footsteps of their near and rather difficult to deal with neighbor.

2:42But it's a fascinating company and they've done amazing things. and I think it's a really interesting episode. So I just wanted to mention that, or I just wanted to introduce that, but also want to mention the Everything Electric show in Melbourne in Australia, which is taking place on the 14th, 15th and 16th of November, which is very, very soon. I have to check things. So you can probably see it in the reflection of my glass. there's nothing in there with dates dates don't stay in there it's really rather embarrassing and awkward anyway 14th 15th 16th in uh melbourne uh it's going to be amazing show there's going to be hundreds of electric cars there hundreds of test drives amazing displays incredible people speaking there uh really interesting people were interviewing or were on panels with and all that sort of thing so it's worth toddling along to if you're in the vicinity of the melbourne metropolis this but no more of that let's get on with it please welcome to the everything electric podcast Sajid Hassan our three free youtube channels on EVs and cleantech are funded by our fun-packed test drive-tastic events in Farnborough London the southwest the north Melbourne and Sydney next up everything electric Melbourne and new for UK viewers you can buy a battery electric vehicle or more at everythingelectric.store.

4:11So Sajid, thank you so much for joining us. This is, I just think this is really, the company you work for, really extraordinary story. I mean, can you just do a sort of potted history of your role at BYD and then BYD's role? Because it is just, I'll just quickly say, I saw a BYD car at the Geneva Motor Show in 2009 and I went, well, they won't sell in the West.

4:42That shows my incredible intuition about the automotive industry. Yeah. Oh, look, I don't blame you for that. I don't think anyone could have seen, I guess, the rise in BID or the other Chinese OEMs for that matter. But thank you for having me on the show, Robert. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. and I guess I'm quite fortunate to be in a very exciting role. So as the Chief Product Officer for BYD Australia and New Zealand, it's my role to oversee the implementation of a product strategy and pricing strategy and work together with the engineering teams in Australia and in China to bring to life, yeah, just the products that we sell in Australia and New Zealand and see through those product strategies and pricing strategies for both the BYD and also the Denzel brand that we're launching very soon.

5:41Yes, of course, yeah. But I mean, I think one of the interesting things for UK viewers, definitely, is the fact that you, well, really the first time I saw a lot of BYD cars was in Australia, right-hand drive. And then, you know, and if you look at the size of our two markets, the UK market is much bigger in terms of cars. But the fact that BYD have decided to, you know, because they've got to build right-hand cars. I mean, it's, you know, right-hand drive cars. It's not, you know, they're set up, I'm assuming, they're set up to build left-hand drive cars in all the factories. And then they go, oh, God, those Australians and British people, they're annoying.

6:20And New Zealanders. I'm not forgetting them. I think many OEMs are feeling like that. Yes, yes. Yes, we are annoying. I admit that. But it's been interesting to see how the Australian market feels like there was... Chinese brands came to Australia first. I'm sure I'm wrong, but that's what my perception of it is. I don't know whether that's true. Well, we started... It should be early. Yeah, we started selling... Ado3 was the first model that we sold in Australia, and so that was in 2022. too. I'm not entirely sure of the market entry timing for Europe, but it could be. I think it was after that, but I could be wrong.

7:06Someone will correct us. It'd be close. Yeah. But yeah, Australia is a particularly important market for BYD globally. As far as export markets go, we are one of the largest and within the Asia Pacific region. And that's where we're the largest market for in terms of sales. And first, I guess, selling in Australia, it's and developing cars from the Australian market. It's a real nice proving ground. And yeah, uh like it's a very competitive market and australians and and the kiwis have very particular tastes which are somewhat aligned to european markets as well yeah so in terms of vehicle durability and suspension and chassis tuning technology the ADAS, all of those features, if they can get it right in the Australian market, then it's a real, I guess, feather in the hat and confidence booster for selling in other markets because Australia's quite a mature automotive market.

8:27Right, yes. That is very true, actually. You're right. When you think of sort of global markets, you know, Australia, well, it had an automotive industry in Australia, General Motors and Ford were building cars there. Even when I first came to Australia, that was still happening. But, I mean, that has changed now. So, I mean, I think in that sense, it's a unique place, isn't it, in a way, to, as regards, you know, I don't know what percentage of new vehicles, well, it's basically 100 % of new vehicles for sale in Australia are from somewhere else. That's certainly the case, right? and the leading country of so we there's a few few main countries that we get most of our vehicles from so thailand where we get a lot of double cab utes being produced right and they're very popular in australia the largest or the second largest country exchanges segment vehicle segment in the Australian market.

9:33So Thailand, Japan, Korea, and China. So China's basically overtaken Korea and pretty close to overtaking Japan as the second largest source of vehicles. Right. Because, I mean, it's just... Can you just go through the size of BYD? It is staggering. Because I actually looked... There was some completely unrelated to this discussion, something I looked up the other day about vehicle, you know, another company that was selling electric vehicles in China. And it was like they'd sold 100 ,000. You go, wow, that's amazing. I didn't know they'd sold that many. Then you look at how many BYDs sold that year.

10:18I think it was 4.1 million in China. I think last year in 2024 BYD in China sold 4.2 new energy vehicles, 4.2 million new energy vehicles. 4.2 million, yeah. And the forecast for this year is 4.6. Right, so it is going up, which is... It's still going up, yeah. Yeah, wow. And I think in total, over the consecutive years, we're close to 14 million. We're close to 14 million global sales. Yeah. Which is, yeah, chunky. I mean, also, for a company that didn't exist really 20 years ago, did I mean 25 years ago? It's not hundreds of years old, BYD. It's a very new company. Yeah, that's it. The growth has been exponential.

11:12So we were close to hitting 14 million total sales, but the 10 million vehicle was only sold last year. So we hit that 10 minutes. And then prior to that, it probably took a lot longer to get to the 5 million mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first vehicle that BYD produced, the F3, was in 2005. So we only started making cars in 2005. Right. and the first plug-in hybrid electric vehicle was in 2008 so right but then well so that intriguingly my in-laws because my wife is australian uh that two of them have byds and i it's got nothing to do with me they made that decision over lockdown when we couldn't go to australia you know during the pandemic so we so they you know because i'm often accused well i bet that's because they talk to you.

12:07It really isn't. I had nothing to do with it. But my sister-in-law has an Atto 3 and my niece has a Dolphin. Oh, fantastic. You know, that's like they've just got cars and they call them cars. They're not interested. I think this is what really fascinates me about that. Their particular experience is they just got cars and they drive them. That's the peak of their interest in it. You know, they need something to get around, go to the shops, to go to things, do whatever they do. and they use a car, and they don't go, yeah, I've got an electric car. It's just a car, which I think is what I'm hoping we reach that point fairly soon.

12:47Well, yeah, they're on the early side of the adopter curve. Yeah. I think we're at about 11 % EV mix of the total sales in Australia. But it's been growing. Last year, it was around 9%. Right. But I think over the course of the next few months and towards the end of 2026, that's really going to boom. There's just a lot more competition, a lot more EV offerings coming on. And vehicle affordability for EVs is also dropping. So we've basically reached EV price parity with ICE powertrains. Right. Is that the case in Australia? So basically, if you're choosing between the two, price isn't the argument.

13:32They're basically roughly the same cost for similar cars. We are basically there now. So you can get an EV for a similarly priced ice car, petrol car or diesel car. Right. And so there's that parity on the initial purchase price. And then when you factor in the ongoing running costs, the reduced servicing costs, it's a big win in favour of the EV. and I mean also I think those early completely legitimate fears I've always I've never not understood them you know I had them as well but how long will the battery last will the car you know is the car going to be any good after five years or whatever all those things I think have slowly been put to bed I mean I did check that you've got a traction battery warranty of eight years is that or 160 ,000k I mean that's sort of you know that's better than you'd get on a combustion engine.

14:27Yeah, so warranty, we've got a bumper warranty for six years for the whole vehicle and eight years for the traction battery. But independent testing across the industry is not just for Australia, but globally has found that battery longevity has far exceeded the initial expectations. And in many cases, the battery is outlasting the vehicle itself. And it's still plenty, the state of health is still healthy. And one of the key benefits of BYD and the technology it employs is its LFP bloody battery. So it's free from nickel because it's focusing on lithium, iron, phosphate. And it has a very, one, I guess, high life cycle count.

15:23so up to 5 ,000 full cycles of charging and discharging, as well as greater stability at wide ranges of temperatures, as well as a wider discharge and charge rate compared with NMC, nickel, manganese, cobalt batteries. Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to remind people who may not know that BYD were initially a battery company that then made cars rather than a car company that went, oh, how do we use batteries? I think BYD knew how to make and use batteries from the get-go. Yeah, the tagline for BYD, at least by Luke Todd, who was one of the pioneers for BYD in Australia, he was describing BYD as the biggest company or the biggest brand that you've never heard of when we launched in Australia.

16:27And many people didn't know that BYD was making the batteries for Motorola and Nokia phones back in the 90s and the early 2000s. And many people probably don't know that we were involved in the rail industry and we'd make our own vehicle batteries and we sell those vehicle batteries to other OEMs. We make our own semiconductors. We have our own minds. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of things added. We're now moving more and more into the new energy or just the energy business. So we've got our stationary battery energy storage solutions and, yeah, I guess with vehicles and as we move towards B2G equipped vehicles, charging and the bi-directional charging it's going to complement the whole it's not just cars that we're making it's basically mobile power plants yeah and power your home and support the group so that is is that something now that is happening with like um the models that you're producing now are they built ready to to to be bi-directional in effect is that part of the plan yeah that's a that's a it's a timely question So we have actually just recently announced a couple of trial programs that we've started with Origin Energy and Amber, who are both in the energy space as energy wholesalers and retailers.

18:04So that trial program is using ATO3 vehicles. So it's entirely possible that you can get your sister-in-law involved in this trial. I'm going to tell her. Yes, I'm definitely telling her. So these lucky customers will be able to install a bi-directional charger in their home on that trial program and use the 803 to charge the vehicle in the off-peak times, whilst it's very cheap. and then when it's in the peak, or the energy peak consumption is high and the power prices are high, they can actually switch off from the grid and use the vehicle battery to power their home. Or feed it back to the grid, and there's an element of arbitrage that some customers on the AMBER program will be able to take advantage of.

18:53Right, so they can actually sell power, right. Yeah, at higher prices than they actually purchased it for. Yeah. Or they got it for free from the solar. Well, that's what I was going to say. Installation of solar in Australia. Yeah, my sister-in-law has solar. And yes, so, I mean, it is that thing that you'd probably be, in this country, if you didn't have solar, you would be encouraged to charge a car at night when our electricity is much cheaper. You would be on a variable tariff. But that thing in Australia is she just said, just plug it in in a day. Because she doesn't have to pay for that.

19:30but it's very uh yeah no that is that is extraordinary because i mean that has been the next step that i've been waiting for i think i probably heard about vehicle to grid in like 2012 at a conference in amsterdam or something i don't even know but you know it's been talked about for over a decade and it's not yet become a sort of commonplace thing but i think it will start once it's technologically easier and a bit cheaper i think i've got a very early vehicle-to-grid system here, which was in relation with Nissan Leaf. And it was a really expensive unit that only worked with certain models of Nissan Leaf, and it was a CHAdeMO connection.

20:07It was much too high-powered. You don't need 50 kilowatts to run your fridge. But it's now getting to a point where, right, oh, okay, I could envisage this working in many households. A hundred percent. There's a few barriers that we need to overcome. So in Australia, at least there's only one state at the moment, the South Australian state, that legally supports installation of vehicle degree charges or bi-directional charges in residential applications. The other states are on their way to legalizing it. And then the cost of the bi-directional charges, because it's still in the infancy of that technology, It's still quite expensive, but with additional competition and more charges being developed, that price will come down.

21:00Yeah. Because that is the interesting thing about it, which is, in effect, something that affects nations all around the world, is a lot of the barriers that we're seeing now to adopting newer technologies are legislative, not technological. The technology, you could just go, well, look, you put that on the wall and you switch it on. So that's done. whereas there are well hang on because there's this legislation that hasn't been i mean that's big the big problem we've got here it's all to do with grid legislation and the legal framework that the grid operates under is it you know that's the barrier which is very it's very frustrating for the end user um but so and now the other thing i read recently is that byd has become It's become, is it the top, oh, it's the top seller of electric vehicles in Australia.

21:50Have you reached that point yet? We've achieved that title in a few months where we came out on top. So I guess the closest competitor is Tesla. Yeah. So I think in the month of April and August, and there was another month where we beat them outright for EV sales in those months. But year to date, up to September sales, we had about 17 ,000 EV sales and there are 22 ,000 EV sales. Actually over the whole year. That's just, yeah, for pure battery electric vehicle sales. If we add in our plug-in hybrid sales, then we take the lead. So, yeah, when it comes to new energy vehicle sales, yes, B-Wahee is the number one in Australia.

22:42Because the other one is, I mean, the thing that I was, you know, I first went to Australia in, I think, 1989, and the thing I remember that I'd never witnessed before was like being in a traffic jam where all the vehicles were pickup trucks or utes. You know, I think they did exist here, you know, one or two of them. but we just didn't have them in any European country. It's just not a thing. I knew it was in America. But that is the shark hybrid. So I'm often a little critical of plug-in hybrids and hybrids because essentially in my purest world, there's still petrol cars that might go further on a litre of fuel, but they still burn petrol.

23:22But I'm putting that bigotry to one side because I think the BYD shark, which I've seen in the metal, I can just see that it's just beautifully positioned to be popular in Australia. I just think, oh, people will love that. And I think that's been borne out, hasn't it? I mean, I think it's been quite a popular vehicle from what I can gather. Yeah, we're quite fortunate to have launched this product. I guess the combination of timing, the packaging, the specs, and just the market dynamics and the desirability of youth in Australia. Everything's lined up nicely. And I guess maybe just to like allay some of your concerns around the plug-in hybrid nature of this vehicle.

24:11Yeah. The thing is with BYD's DMO, so dual mode off-road super hybrid platform, it's actually an electric first plug-in hybrid. So there's actually, there's a few different executions of plug-in hybrid that can be either more electrically skewed or more petrol, ice, diesel skewed. And so ours swings towards the much more electric skewed. So the vehicle can actually just be driven entirely on electric power alone. Right. If you're doing trips, basically it has up to like 70 kilometres EV driving range. Right. So if your commute or your usage is within that range, it can be used entirely on electric power.

25:07What I notice a lot in my online commentary and net forums is that people, there's a misconception. And I think it's just that because this technology is very new, it takes some time for them. And because there are different executions of that technology, it's not really well understood. But with our plug-in hybrids, when the battery gets down to its low state of charge level, it's not that the electric motor just stops and you're only driving on a petrol engine and it just becomes a pure ice wave. It doesn't work like that. the vehicle platform and the powertrain controller, the whole system, works to ensure that the battery is kept topped up at a level using the petrol motor as a generator to keep the battery charged so that it continues to drive like an electric vehicle.

26:06Right. So just to explain, at that point then, there's no mechanical connection between the petrol engine and the wheels, if you like? It's just running as a generator? Or is there always... Because there were various flavours of hybrids, aren't there? That's right. Well, it can actually do both. So it's a series parallel plug-in hybrid. So it can act like a generator and just charge the battery or at higher vehicle speeds, so on a freeway or 70 kilometres an hour or higher. the petrol engine can directly engage the drivetrain to drive the wheels when it's actually going to be more efficient at that operating speed.

26:51Also, presumably if you're towing something heavy, that would be... That's right. Yes, exactly. So it's going to actually prioritize the more efficient method of providing that energy and at those speeds, it would then be the petrol motor. On the other hand, you've got series-only type plug-in hybrids, like some of our competitors, where it isn't able to only run the vehicle on electric, and it's always going to have to run the ICE motor to move the vehicle. Yeah, which is sort of like the early Prius, I would guess. It's that style of it. Although that would run for about a mile if you were really careful.

27:30I had one. I had several. But yeah, that was, yes. No, it isn't like that. You're right. We don't need to go into that. I mean, one of the things I think was I did a bit of research about that and that you can get two litres per hundred kilometres fuel efficiency. Is that somewhere around that? Which is, you know, in the numbers that I recognise, about 117 miles to the gallon, which is extraordinary in a pickup truck. That is like bonkers. If that is if I've done my that's me doing the maths. So I could be wrong. But it's that's when the battery is above 25 percent. so at that level you can get that kind of and it's just I mean I just wanted to find because I had no idea what other pickups do but the Ford Ranger averages 11.5 litres per 100 kilometres or 20 miles to the gallon which is and that's just a regular gasoline vehicle you know that's not a hybrid but that is incredible difference and I mean has that been a popular seller because I think I think they'd only just come out the last time I was in Australia.

28:37So I didn't see a lot of them on the road, but I think they were there. Well, yeah, it's doing pretty well. So there was actually in the month of June where it was the third best-selling youth in the Australian market outright. Right. Wow. And there's a lot of competition in that area. Wow, that's amazing. A lot of competition and a lot of well-entrenched and established players. So for it to perform that well is quite surprising. We're quite proud of that achievement. And I think the year to date we're at about 16 ,000 sales. And it's making up a huge portion of our total sales in Australia. Yeah.

29:21I mean, can you, have you got any data on, because there's been an article in some publication, I can't wish I could remember what it was, but it was seeing that there was very often people weren't plugging in plug-in hybrids and this is cars in the UK this is not utes in Australia but they weren't bothering to plug them in and effectively they just became like petrol cars with a big battery you're hauling around I mean from from your research and your understanding of the vehicles are are the owners plugging them in fairly regularly is that a thing they do that's a that's a really interesting question.

29:59It's hard to say we haven't been monitoring that data, although it's worthwhile that there's probably there'll be a point in time where we need to do some market research and we'll get some chart owners together and query them on their charting habits. But I guess kind of like what I covered before, if they, even if they decide to treat it as a nice vehicle and only and only top it off with petrol and not charge it. It's going to use the petrol engine to charge the battery. And it's not going to be in a situation where it's just lugging around a heavy battery and using the petrol motor to drive the vehicle.

30:43And I think maybe that's what you're referring to in the UK market where there was a problem where people weren't charging those vehicles and lugging around a heavy battery for no reason and driving it on the petrol, that's a problem for the series only hybrids, where they cannot use the petrol engine to generate electricity to drive it on electric power. And in that case, yes, you lose the benefit of that fuel consumption, that advantage, and then the real world CO2 results may actually not be as good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the other thing that I think is, has been the challenge of the sort of transition to electrified vehicles to, yeah, but specifically to battery electric vehicles is the servicing model that in a sense, when you buy, I just know this from experience, when you bought a combustion car 30 years ago, even if you bought it new, you would expect to take it in for a service every six months and you'd need spare parts and oil changes.

31:52and all that stuff. And that was just the world we lived in. It was normal. I never, I moaned about the cost when I never thought about it. And since I've had electric vehicles, I go, oh dear, I haven't done that. I mean, I'm a very bad example because I should have done more, but I have a Nissan Leaf, first generation built in Japan, 2011 Nissan Leaf. And it had so little work done on it until last year when it needed some welding done. But for the first time, it's done 90 ,000 miles and it's never had, you know, it's had tyres and some brake pads and a rear wiper blade. But that model, and I'm just interested, because it sort of ties back into, you know, because you will evoke, I don't know how many showrooms and service centres you have in Australia now, but I was aware, I kept seeing them.

32:38I was there last time. I'm going, oh, there's a BYD showroom. So you've definitely opened a few. But I mean, is that, presumably that model, what I think I'm trying to get at is that BYD isn't burdened with the old legacy of we sell the car, but we actually make the money from servicing it type model. Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. We've got about 80 dealer sites in Australia at the moment, and we're looking for 90 that should be fully operational by the end of the year. Right. So it's quite a wide network, and it was an extremely rapid expansion over the past couple of years. But yeah, with an electric vehicle, there's far less moving parts than there is compared to an ICE vehicle.

33:30So your servicing costs are kind of limited to, there's still going to be brake fluid, power steering fluid, brakes and tyres, all those consumables. But yeah, you're not doing things like timing chains and transmissions coolants and all those things pumps, I always remember your water pump's gone oh god I can't remember why has my water pump gone, where has it gone it's gone in the bin, we put you a new one in yeah I mean it is noticeably different, yes I mean I've always have to put the caveat and suspension, steering, lights all that gear is exactly the same as wear and tear on those is just the same it's just the literally the engine and transmission is generally a lot simpler and uh with less moving parts in that but but i mean that is quite a i think that's been a challenge for the big legacy brands the big european brands that are used to that model where they go well we're going to be selling loads of water pumps after they bought the car so so let them have it cheaper but i mean that i mean it's a combination of that so How many of those showrooms are service centres?