BYD will launch a wave of models designed and developed in Europe for Europe over the next three years, starting with the plug-in hybrid Dolphin G in the coming weeks, CEO Stella Li has said.
The Dolphin G will be shown for the first time in the UK at the Goodwood’s Festival of Speed in July, confirmed Li at the FT’s Future of the Car event in London, with an unveiling understood to take place in June.
As previously reported by Autocar, it will effectively serve as a PHEV alternative to the Dolphin Surf EV, making it the smallest plug-in hybrid available in the UK.
Li said the hatch would be the first of a new wave of European-specific models as it looks to increase its share in the market. She previously told Autocar that “our goal is for customers to think of BYD as a European brand”.
Speaking today, she said: “[The Dolphin G] is the first product we have designed for Europe as there is no interest in China [for this type of car] and in the future there will be more and more products designed for European tastes and consumer needs and designed here,” she said.
Explaining the decision, she added: “We see the bigger gap now; in China the competition is making cars bigger and bigger and the chassis wider and wider; it has become crazy. This makes it impossible in Europe; you cannot have a bigger car running in Paris, in Milan, in Rome, in London. People still prefer the smaller-sized cars [there].
“So then I saw a very clear roadmap. Now in certain ranges such as C or B segment we are going to split, so now we are going to have a European standard for B and C. Sometimes I have to tell the engineer: don’t make this car bigger, not for Europe, it needs to be smaller than 4.3m [long] not bigger. I see a very clear split now [between China and Europe].
“In the next three years, car design [for these models] will be much more for Europe, no longer China car shipped to here to share with Europe.”
Li did not go into further details about the future models, but she did infer that all of these cars would be built in Europe. Work is currently being completed on its new Hungarian plant, which will open later this year; the first model to be built there will be the Dolphin Surf and the Atto 2, and it's possible that the Dolphin G could join them.
