Source: BYD

BYD (HKG: 1211, OTCMKTS: BYDDF) announced on March 13, 2026, plans to invest 300 million BRL (c. $56.9M) in a new Automotive Testing and Evaluation Center in Rio de Janeiro, pairing the facility with a 3,000-worker hiring push at its existing plant in Bahia as the automaker deepens its Brazilian footprint.

The announcement was made at an event in Rio attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, alongside BYD executive vice president Stella Li. The new center will be built on a 184,000-square-meter site within the Galeão International Airport complex on Ilha do Governador, with construction scheduled to begin in late 2026 and operations targeted for 2028.

The facility is modeled on BYD's Zhengzhou All-Terrain Circuit and proving ground in China, which features a 1,758-meter main circuit, off-road modules, and a 70-meter amphibious pool for water-fording tests.

Source: BYD

The Rio center will include comparable infrastructure: dedicated tracks to evaluate vehicle speed, power, endurance, and durability, a specialist off-road course, and a submerged track to assess performance in flooded conditions — a scenario directly relevant to tropical urban environments.

Li said the center would allow BYD to generate data in tropical conditions, which she described as essential for developing and adapting technologies for the markets in which the company operates. Brazil's road conditions, humidity, and temperature range differ substantially from those found in China or Europe, and the new facility is intended to close that engineering gap.

BYD's global R&D workforce currently stands at approximately 122,000 professionals.

BYD's rationale for anchoring the facility in Rio extends beyond logistics. Mayor Paes noted that all of BYD's autonomous driving R&D will be based in Rio, citing the city's proximity to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro's engineering hub COPPE and the local Technology Park. Positioning the center at Galeão also streamlines the import of test vehicles and equipment and simplifies access for international teams.

The Rio announcement came alongside a separate development from Bahia. At the Camaçari plant — BYD's largest manufacturing complex outside China, which began production on July 1, 2025 — the company confirmed it is adding a second production shift and 800 new jobs, a move expected to double annual capacity from 150,000 to 300,000 units.

The plant already employs around 1,000 workers and has produced more than 35,000 vehicles — Dolphin Mini, King, and Song Pro — since its official opening in October 2025. An additional 3,500 contractors remain engaged in ongoing construction at the site, with a total planned investment of 5.5 billion BRL (c. $1.04B).

BYD executive vice president Stella Li also confirmed that the Camaçari plant has secured export orders totaling 100,000 vehicles — 50,000 destined for Argentina and 50,000 for Mexico — underlining Brazil's growing role as a regional production hub. The plant's long-term capacity target remains 600,000 units annually.

Brazil has become BYD's most important market outside China. The company sold approximately 113,000 vehicles in Brazil in 2025, a 49% year-on-year increase, making it the country's dominant EV brand with around 73% of the battery-electric vehicle segment.

In January 2026, BYD ranked fifth overall in Brazil's vehicle market with 48.8% year-on-year growth. The company has since raised its 2026 sales target from 180,000 to 250,000 units, aiming for 10% market share — in a market where EV penetration reached 9.8% in January 2026.

Brazil's progressive import tariff regime, which reaches 35% on imported EVs and hybrids by July 2026, has accelerated BYD's push to both manufacture and develop technology locally. The Rio center and Camaçari expansion together position the company to serve not only the Brazilian domestic market but potentially the broader Mercosur region, with executives also flagging evaluation of European Union export opportunities.

Whether BYD can replicate the engineering insights from a tropical proving ground quickly enough to influence the next model cycle will determine how much strategic value this investment ultimately delivers.

Conversion rate: 1 USD = 5.28 BRL as of March 22, 2026