No stopping, another Chinese battery factory arrives in Hungary

Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is building a HUF 10 billion (EUR 27.1m) battery assembly plant in Fot, near Budapest, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in Shenzhen on Wednesday.

The investment, which will create 100 jobs initially, is being supported with a HUF 1 billion government grant, Szijjártó said, according to a ministry statement.

“This investment will boost Hungary’s role in the European auto industry’s electric transition, contribute to the protection of Hungarian jobs and help attract more capacities in the Cmost important industry of the future,” Szijjártó said.

BYD is the world’s largest electric vehicle maker, the second biggest player in the electric battery industry as well as a global leader in telecommunications and IT, the minister said.

He noted that the electric buses manufactured by BYD in Komárom, in northern Hungary, “are hugely popular across Hungary and Europe“, accounting for about 80 percent of London’s public transport bus fleet.

BYD also supplies around 42 percent of the electric buses replacing the old and polluting buses in Hungarian cities and towns, he added.

“This means that the Chinese are an absolute market leader in Hungary in terms of electric buses,” Szijjártó said.

Meanwhile, he said the EV industry would shape the coming years and decades of the global economy.

Szijjártó welcomed the “irreversible” transition to electric vehicles, saying it would be impossible to reach global environmental protection targets without it given that 14 percent of global harmful emissions are linked to public road transport.