The largest brand in electric cars worldwide opens a garage in Meppel: the Chinese BYD

For the sake of completeness: BYD only makes electric cars and stands for Build Your Dreams. It has been active in the Dutch market for a few years. In 2021, three BYD cars were sold in the Netherlands. A year later that grew to 200 and last year 1,230 were sold. This year, 750 cars of the brand have been sold through April. For comparison: last year 396 were sold in the first four months.

That’s not the only thing. BYD sales are growing rapidly worldwide. In fact, this Chinese car brand has sold the most electric cars in the world since last year. It has passed Tesla. Last year, 3,024,417 were sold around the world. That is an increase of 62 percent compared to 2022.

BYD already has a few garages in the Netherlands, but the one in Meppel is the first ‘standalone branch’ in the entire Northern Netherlands. “All models are listed here and we have demonstration models available.” The choice was mainly inspired by the central location of the city. It starts right away. “We are surprised by the success,” says Jutstra. The first dozens of models have been sold and are full of test drives.

There is a good chance that you have ever dealt with BYD. “We actually all know BYD, without really knowing it.” This is due to the history of the company, which became famous as a battery manufacturer. “Almost half of iPads are produced by BYD. Our Nokia devices used to be equipped with a BYD battery. And one in five mobile phones is now equipped with BYD technology.”