BYD Co. is actively considering building a manufacturing plant in Canada, executive Vice President Stella Li told Bloomberg, but said the company would insist on owning and operating the facility outright.
Stella Li’s comments directly contradict the joint venture requirement Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has set as a condition of Chinese automaker investment.
“I don’t think a JV will work,” Li said in an interview during a visit to São Paulo, according to Bloomberg.
The disclosure is the first public confirmation from BYD‘s senior leadership that the company is studying Canadian manufacturing, after months of preparatory moves that EV has tracked since the Canada-China trade deal was announced in January.
What BYD Has Already Done
BYD‘s Canadian groundwork has been more advanced than its public silence suggested.
When EV contacted the company in January about its plans following the Carney-Xi trade agreement, a spokesperson said BYD was “unable to share specific details at this time.”
Behind the scenes, however, the company was moving.
EV reported in February that BYD had registered its Shenzhen and Xi’an passenger car manufacturing plants with Transport Canada’s Appendix G preclearance registry — becoming the first Chinese automaker to complete the step for consumer vehicles.
Those plants produce models including the Seal, Dolphin, Atto 3, and Seagull, the latter marketed as the Dolphin Surf in Europe.
BYD also has an existing physical footprint in Canada: an electric bus assembly plant in Newmarket, Ontario, operational since 2019.
That facility gives the company a corporate, operational, and workforce base that pure-play importers lack.
Last week, advisory firm DSMA confirmed to Automotive News Canada that BYD, along with Chery and Geely, is preparing for Canadian market entry by the end of 2026.
DSMA’s Jason Zhao said preparations were “well underway” but that none of the three was ready to begin shipments immediately, with months of vehicle certification work still ahead.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly confirmed earlier this year that she had met with BYD and Chery, among other Chinese automakers.
“I’ve had these conversations, and will continue to have these conversations,” Joly said. “I think we have to be not naive, but we also have to be open minded.”
The Joint Venture Clash
Li’s rejection of the JV model sets up a direct confrontation with Ottawa’s stated policy.
When Carney announced the trade deal in Beijing in January, the government said it expected the arrangement to “drive considerable new Chinese joint-venture investment in Canada with trusted partners to protect and create new auto manufacturing careers for Canadian workers.”
The joint venture requirement was designed to address two concerns simultaneously: ensuring Chinese investment creates Canadian jobs and manufacturing capacity, and providing domestic partners with oversight of operations, intellectual property, and data handling.
The latter a point of particular sensitivity given the surveillance concerns raised by the Conservative opposition, as EV reported earlier this week.
Shadow industry minister Raquel Dancho has said Chinese EVs have “the capability, for all intents and purposes, of being surveillance vehicles.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has labelled them “spy vehicles” and called for a consumer boycott.
BYD‘s insistence on sole ownership reflects what Li described to Bloomberg as the company’s vertical integration philosophy — keeping its supply chain in-house.
The approach has powered BYD‘s rise to become the world’s largest EV maker, but it is precisely the model that Canadian policymakers and unions have warned against.
Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, has argued that without domestic partnership requirements, Chinese plants would offer limited benefit to Canadian workers.
Acquisition Signal
Li separately told Bloomberg that BYD is open to acquiring a legacy automaker, though no deal is currently close.
“We’re open to every opportunity we have,’ she said. ‘We’ll see what benefits us.”
The comment comes at a moment when several Western automakers are under severe financial pressure — stretched by simultaneous investments in combustion and electric vehicle operations, battered by tariff disruptions, and facing margin compression from Chinese competition. Li did not name any targets.
Bloomberg noted the precedent of Zhejiang Geely Holding’s acquisition of Volvo Cars more than a decade ago.
The Quota Context
BYD’s manufacturing ambitions sit alongside its import plans.
Ottawa opened the Chinese EV import permitting processon March 1, with the first 24,500 permits available on a first-come, first-served basis through August 31.
The total annual quota of 49,000 vehicles — covering battery-electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid models — rises to 70,000 by 2030.
Final regulations published in the Canada Gazette on March 11 revealed that the affordable EV requirement does not take effect until the 2027 quota year, meaning BYD and other Chinese manufacturers face no price ceiling on their first year of imports.
The share of vehicles required to be priced below C$35,000 at import steps up from 0% in 2026 to 10% in 2027, 20% in 2028, 35% in 2029, and 50% in 2030.
China-built vehicles are also ineligible for Canada’s relaunched federal EV rebate of up to C$5,000, which is restricted to models produced domestically or in free-trade partner countries. A Canadian factory — whether JV or wholly owned — would solve that problem.
US Remains Off Limits
Li told Bloomberg that the US market remains too “complicated” for BYD to enter, citing the combination of steep tariffs and the ban on Chinese connected car technology.
The company is instead focused on replicating its Brazilian success — where it sold 76,700 vehicles in 2024 and is investing R$5.5 billion in a manufacturing complex in Camaçari — across Europe and other regions.
BYD is ramping up its first European passenger vehicle plant in Hungary and evaluating a second facility in Turkey, according to Bloomberg.
The company aims to sell 1.3 million vehicles abroad in 2026.
For Canada, the question is whether Ottawa will bend on its JV requirement to secure a BYD factory — or whether Li’s public rejection forces a policy standoff that delays the manufacturing investment Carney promised would arrive within three years.
