(This story has been refiled to remove the sentence saying BYD did not reply to a request for comment)
By Fabio Teixeira
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Chinese electric car maker BYD’s new factory in Brazil will be “fully functional” by December 2026, after its operations were delayed because of an investigation into labor abuses, Bahia state labor secretary Augusto Vasconcelos said in a video on Monday.
By the end of this year, the factory should start producing cars from semi-finished kits, he added.
“A new schedule is being established so that by December 2026 the factory will be fully functional with the expectation of generating 10,000 jobs,” said Vasconcelos in the video published to social media.
The news comes as Bahia Governor Jeronimo Rodrigues travels to China with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, discussing plans for BYD and the auto industry, Vasconcelos said.
Operations will begin with the assembly of vehicles in 2025, as the factory ramps up with “progressive nationalization of the best-selling models in Brazil”, said BYD in a statement.
With 76,713 vehicles sold in Brazil throughout the year, the company registered a growth of around 328% compared to the 17,937 sold in 2023, according to a January press release.
BYD’s investment in Brazil – its biggest market outside of China – aims to turn a former Ford factory into a manufacturing complex with capacity to make 150,000 electric cars per year. The project was tarnished in December with accusations of labor abuses at the worksite.
The Chinese company’s bet on Brazil includes the acquisition of mining rights to areas rich in lithium, a mineral commonly used to build batteries for electric vehicles.
The plant was expected to have started making cars in Brazil at the beginning of this year, but delays involving the labor probe and heavy rains affected the timeline, said Julio Bonfim, head of the metalworkers union of Camaçari, Bahia.
To assemble the vehicles from the imported kits from China, BYD is set to hire around 1,000 workers in Brazil this year, Bonfim told Reuters, far short of the 10,000 the Chinese firm first promised.
Throughout the project, BYD estimates that it will create 20,000 jobs directly and indirectly, said the firm.
Despite the delay, Bonfim said the new timeline is good news, and that next year he expects the hirings to increase as the firm prepares to build vehicles entirely in the country.
(Reporting by Fabio TeixeiraEditing by Brad Haynes and Aurora Ellis)
