China’s electric vehicle maker Build Your Dreams (BYD) plans to invest $1.3 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Indonesia with a capacity of 150,000 units, local media Jakarta Globe reported on Thursday.

“A $1.3 billion investment with a capacity of 150,000 units. I appreciate BYD’s commitment to launching battery electric vehicles (BEV). I hope this can strengthen the era of electric vehicles, an environmentally-friendly ecosystem,” Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto said in a video message announcing the investment on Thursday.

BYD has officially introduced its electric cars — BYD Seal, BYD Atto 3, and BYD Dolphin — to the Indonesian market on Thursday.

According to BYD Asia-Pacific General Manager Liu Xueliang, these electric cars have undergone global testing and are distributed to almost 70 countries worldwide.

Shenzhen-based BYD has recently outpaced Tesla as the top seller of electric cars in the last three months of 2023. BYD sold 526,409 electric cars in the three months, topping Tesla’s 484,507 units, according to the report.

The company has been aggressively expanding into new markets. Its exports more than quadrupled to 242,765 vehicles in 2023, accounting for 8 percent of its sales, and BYD announced last month that it would build an electric vehicle factory in Hungary, its first in Europe, the report added.

BYD is also accelerating its overseas footprint by setting up production facilities in Brazil and Thailand (with an annual production capacity of 150,000 units each) and expanding its sales network in Europe, according to DBS Group Research.

The company is shipping several models including Dolphin and Atto3 models abroad and will add more to the export list. The overseas market generates better margins, DBS Group Research analyst said in a note.

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