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30 September 2018 | AutoData MANUFACTURERS » BYD B uild your dreams. This is not just BYD’s motto, but the meaning of its own name. The Chinese com- pany, still young in the centennial automotive market, started its activities in 1995, manufacturing cellphone batteries. Ten years later it would start producing cars – powered by gasoline - while rapidly it was expanding its business to Europe and North America. The company arrived in Brazil in 2015, and has prospected with governments and city halls actions for its electric vehi- cles since then. In São Paulo, for example, it donated four electric vehicles, as well as two chargers and its installation to the Metropolitan Civil Guard for tests and ex- periment. The objective is to receive an OK that enables the company to participate in future vehicle bids of the municipality’s fleet. In Campinas, in the countryside of São Paulo, BYD has a bus chassis plant and another one to produce solar panels, the photovoltaics. And it schedules the inauguration of another factory for the end of 2018, this one for the production of batteries for electric vehicles- automobiles, trucks and buses - in Manaus, AM. Carlos Roma, director of sales, states that “the production of batteries will be destined for its own use, supply to other local manufacturers and export”. The com- panywill also produce (in Brazil) the Energy By Lúcia Camargo Nunes Building the dreams. And the infrastructure. BYD verticalizes production of electric vehicles in Brazil, from energy generation to the vehicles themselves, and also the batteries