Bus, stopped? Why BYD’s electric bus operations may be cut short in the US
- Federal legislation could ban funding to US operations of Shenzhen-based vehicle maker as well as state-supported train manufacturer CRRC
- For BYD, it comes down to whether a single word will stay in the National Defence Authorisation Act now being consolidated in Congress
BYD – a Shenzhen-based electric vehicle maker whose name is short for Build Your Dreams – opened its US bus factory in Lancaster, California, in 2013. Six years later, those dreams risk becoming nightmares as anti-China sentiment in Washington grows.
The way BYD sees it, it’s been a model corporate citizen. It has invested US$250 million in a small American community; created 800 unionised manufacturing jobs; built environmentally friendly products; and followed “Buy America” requirements by sourcing 70 per cent of its components from US companies.
“If BYD was a Danish company, we’d be held up as an example of what the US wants us to do,” said Zachary Kahn, the company’s US director of government relations. “We’ve come in, manufacturing in the US for the benefit of union labour and the community.”
But the way critics see it, BYD is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party that’s gaming a free-market system, poised to spy on bus riders and activate kill switches remotely to block intersections, spewing chaos.
It’s a story that epitomises the deepening distrust between Washington and Beijing fuelled by economic nationalism, technological rivalry, alleged espionage and data theft.
BYD’s US fate now depends on a single word in the 2020 National Defence Authorisation Act. The Senate and the House have each passed versions and are now ironing out differences in conference.