posted me to this link
A lot of the details in there we already know, but I hadn't followed byd enough to know this part.
basically, BYD has plants everywhere in China. Not just in Shanghai and Shenzhen or their surrounding areas or even 2nd tier cities. A lot of these places are 3rd or 4th tier cities in China.
If you just look at this, they are diversifying their production all over China. This is quite an interesting strategy. It's one that has served them well during the most recent lockdowns as a lot of its competitors could not operate since they are based around Shanghai.
There is huge cost of living and salary gap between Shanghai and Shenzhen with 2nd tier cities. There is even bigger gap with 3rd and 4th tier cities where some of BYD's factories are located. Bringing their high tech plants to these cities less associated with auto/EV industry probably brought BYD a lot of favors with local government in terms of taxes/land and order book. This is not a strategy that a company like Tesla would be able to adopt. Or even other major foreign automakers and their JVs can do, since they are probably uncomfortable operating outside of the areas best known to foreigners. It's also unlikely smaller startups like NIO or XPeng can open up many different factories. So, this is like something only large private automaker with firm understanding of regional politics and supply chain management inside China can employ. This is also not an easy strategy to execute since many of these 3rd/4th tiers cities don't have the same work culture as the ultra productive manufacturing hubs. But if you are able to get similar level of productive while paying much lower wages, then you win big time.
There has always been this question of how BYD has such a cost advantage over its competitors. Having a great management and vertical integration are definitely keys, but I think being able to carry out manufacturing outside of the traditional auto hubs also provides them a key advantage.
