BYD is close to a decision on acquiring an existing automotive plant in Europe, with Spain and France identified as the leading candidates for a brownfield investment, according to Alfredo Altavilla, the automaker’s Special Adviser for Europe. “This week, we have two teams looking around in different jurisdictions, so we’re close,” Altavilla told the Reuters Automotive Europe conference in Frankfurt on 1 July, adding that the call “needs to be made very soon”.

The acquisition would mark BYD’s second passenger vehicle manufacturing site in Europe, following the Szeged plant in Hungary, where equipment installation is still under way and mass production is now expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. The plant which had previously occupied the secondary position in BYD’s European plans—a site in Turkey, where BYD had announced plans for a US$1bn investment—remains on hold with no timeline for completion. Deputy Chief Executive Stella Li confirmed that Hungary is the immediate priority.

The Turkey stall is less a project failure than a strategic recalibration in the wake of the EU’s proposed ‘Made in EU’ rules. The original merits of the site—circumventing countervailing duties of 27% on Chinese-made battery-electric vehicles—are also shared by other sites in Europe that would comply with these proposed rules. It remains to be seen whether Turkey will eventually be included within the scheme.

BYD has not disclosed what specific plants are under evaluation, but the landscape of available sites has been shaped in no small part by incumbent European manufacturers’ unresolved capacity problems. Stellantis in particular has presided over a collapse in Italian vehicle production, to a 70-year low of 390,000 units in 2025, and its Cassino plant in Lazio has seen output fall by more than 37% in early 2026. 

BYD has previously confirmed discussions with Stellantis about acquiring underutilised facilities, with Italy named as a priority alongside France. Stellantis’ existing joint ventures with Dongfeng and Leapmotor at sites in Spain and France demonstrate a clear willingness to open its manufacturing network to Chinese partners.

This pattern, it should be noted, extends well beyond BYD: Xpeng is in talks with Volkswagen and other European automakers about acquiring factories, having outgrown its contract manufacturing arrangement at Magna Steyr’s Graz plant; Volkswagen itself has said it is exploring whether Chinese partners could absorb excess capacity across a network it is trying to shrink from approximately 12 million units annually to nine million. “Fighting that invasion is bloody useless,” Altavilla remarked of the broader Chinese push into Europe.

BYD’s European sales trajectory gives weight to the urgency. European volumes rose 270% in 2025 to nearly 188,000 vehicles, and more than doubled again in the first five months of this year to above 100,000, putting BYD on course to exceed its prior full-year total well before December. Altavilla’s remarks about German sites being uncompetitive, citing underutilisation as well as cost, point toward Southern Europe—where energy costs are lower and labour markets more flexible—as the preferred destination. 

BYD’s experience in Brazil, where acquiring a former Ford plant in Camaçari led directly to market leadership, arguably offers the clearest template for what it is attempting to replicate. A brownfield acquisition in Southern Europe would give BYD a manufacturing presence capable of fulfilling the ‘Made in EU’ requirement, insulating it from both tariff risk and future subsidy exclusion, while absorbing capacity that host-country governments are already under political pressure to keep in use. 

Altavilla also characterised ongoing European structuring as “the first real wake-up call”, suggesting that BYD’s advisers see the window for these deals as narrow. If BYD does not move quickly to secure one of the brownfield sites rapidly becoming available, another Chinese player might be willing to step in before it does.