BYD hits a dead end in India as Piyush Goyal says ‘no’ to Chinese EV maker

Union minister of commerce and industry Piyush Goyal said Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD will not be allowed to make new investments in India.

“We will have to be cautious on whom we allow to invest in the country. We have to be cautious about our strategic and security interests,” Goyal told Bloomberg at the India Global Forum in Mumbai.

Goyal’s said this in response to a question on whether India would allow BYD to work with a local partner. BYD currently imports its cars from China.

“We need to be convinced that they will work by the rules of the game,” he said, adding that the country needs to be alert on dumping by other countries in the wake of US tariffs.

These comments come at a time when the government has announced a new EV manufacturing policy which experts believe is tailor-made for Elon Musk’s Tesla.

In 2023, India rejected investments from China’s auto behemoths — BYD and Great Wall Motors (GWM). BYD’s $1 billion investment plan was rejected in July 2023 while GWM had to shelve plans to set up an India plant as it could not secure clearances.

Companies belonging to countries that share land border with India need prior government approval to make foreign direct investment in the country.

The carmaker last year told Fortune India that it is not looking to invest under the Indian government’s new electric vehicle manufacturing policy which offers reduced import duty on EVs if a company commits to invest $500 million to set up a new plant in the country.

BYD aims to play only in the premium segment in India and has no plans to launch an affordable EV in the near term. “We are trying to spot opportunities in the premium segment. We are not restricted by shape. BYD has a line-up of cars starting from hatchback to luxury SUVs. But we only want to concentrate on the premium segment in India,” Rajeev Chauhan, head of electric passenger vehicles business at BYD India told Fortune India last year.

Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD set a new revenue record in 2024 by clocking revenues of $107 billion, surpassing Tesla's $97.7 billion for the first time. However, about 20.5% of BYD’s revenue for 2024 came from its mobile handset division. In comparison, BYD's automobile business generated roughly $85.1 billion in revenue last year, which is less than Tesla’s total revenue for 2024.

While BYD sells both plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles, Tesla focuses exclusively on BEVs. In 2024, BYD sold 4.3 million cars, with 1.76 million of those being BEVs, which is slightly fewer than Tesla’s 1.79 million BEV sales.