On December 4, BYD Japan announced that ten of its retail stores nationwide had inked partnerships with local governments to deploy their electric vehicles as backup power sources for shelters, hospitals, and critical facilities in the event of a natural disaster, ensuring the continuity of essential infrastructure.
BYD’s pure electric vehicles feature a ‘Vehicle-to-Home’ (V2H) capability, allowing them to serve as an instantaneous power source for homes or businesses during outages, effectively becoming an extension of the grid. The BYD Atto 3 offers a family approximately four days’ worth of electric power supply. The BYD Atto 3 arrives standard-equipped with a built-in bi-directional charger, allowing it to harness energy from its battery by discharging it.
In July 2022, BYD made a formal entry into the Japanese market, unveiling three pure-electric models: the Atto 3 (also known as the Yuan Plus in China), Seal, and Dolphin. By January 9, 2023, the Atto 3 and Dolphin had made their debut in Japan, while in June 2024, the Seal officially entered the market.
Between January and September of this year, BYD’s automotive sales in Japan reached 1,742 units, representing a remarkable 96.6% increase compared to the same period last year, despite the modest overall volume.
In the initial six months of 2024, Japan’s imports of passenger vehicles recorded a significant decline, with gross sales totalling 113,887 units – a year-over-year drop of approximately 7% according to industry data from JAIA. Notably, pure electric vehicle sales reached 10,785 units, equivalent to around 10 percent of the total number of imported cars in Japan. In the first six months of the current year, BYD’s gross sales in Japan surged by an impressive 88% year-on-year, reaching a total of 1,084 vehicles. The company also saw its ranking in imported automobile sales in Japan jump from nineteenth place in the same period last year to fourteenth.
Although Tesla manages to sell around 4,000 to 5,000 vehicles annually in Japan’s market. While Japanese consumers may not exhibit a strong demand for purely electric vehicles, they instead prioritize purchasing hybrid models that offer a balance of economy and fuel efficiency.
The settlement’s potential impact on BYD’s Japanese sales performance over the next few years is sure to grab attention.
Supply: QQ Information, Yiche
