BYD, a flagship Greater Bay Area company, is expanding battery manufacturing in Brazil and lining up about US$98 million for grid-scale storage, as it targets 50 percent local content by 2027 and Brazil's top sales spot by 2030
Shenzhen EV giant BYD deepens its battery push in Brazil
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One of the Greater Bay Area’s best-known companies is tightening its grip on the Brazilian market. BYD, the electric-vehicle and battery maker headquartered in Shenzhen, is expanding battery production in Brazil and earmarking about US$98 million for energy-storage systems to support the country’s power grid – part of its push to become a genuinely local producer.
The investment shows how far the Greater Bay Area’s industrial heavyweights now reach. From its base in Shenzhen’s Pingshan district, BYD has grown into one of the world’s largest sellers of electric cars and batteries, and its moves abroad increasingly signal the region’s manufacturing ambitions.
The company is aiming for half the content of each of its Brazilian-built cars to be sourced within the country by the start of 2027, said Alexandre Baldy, senior vice-president of BYD Brazil. He told Reuters on Monday that producing batteries locally was the next step towards that goal.
“We are localising,” Baldy said, “so that we can truly become a Brazilian manufacturer. The battery is one more item, an important component.”
Making more components locally also helps BYD cut its tax bill and meet local-content rules. Leaning on its plant in Bahia state, the carmaker aims to become Brazil’s best-selling brand by 2030 – within reach for a company already in the market’s top five.
[See more: Shenzhen leads China in three high tech sectors: 3D printers, robots and batteries]
The new passenger-car battery lines form part of a previously announced 5.5-billion-real (US$1.08 billion) investment in BYD’s flagship complex in Camaçari, Bahia, which opened in October 2025. The company is also spending 50 million to 60 million reais to expand a bus-battery line.
A further 500 million reais (US$98 million) is earmarked for a new line making BYD’s Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), which holds electricity for the grid — timed ahead of Brazil’s first auction for industrial-scale batteries in December.
Such storage is seen as a fix for Brazil’s solar and wind operators, many of which have curbed output, or frozen investment, because the grid cannot absorb all the power they generate at peak times.
