Chinese electric-vehicle giant BYD is in talks with Jeep maker Stellantis and other carmakers about taking over their EU plants as part of its international expansion drive, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.
The talks come weeks after Stellantis shocked investors with a €22-billion write-down on its EV operations, saying it had overestimated demand for clean-energy cars.
“We are talking to not only Stellantis, we’re talking to other companies too,” Stella Li, BYD’s vice president in charge of international operations, said on the sidelines of an auto conference in London.
“We are looking for any available plant in Europe because we do want to utilise this kind of spare capacity,” she said.
BYD became the world’s biggest EV seller last year, but its earnings have slumped due to weak domestic demand, prompting it to seek larger markets overseas.
The company is already building its own factory in Hungary’s Szeged, which is due to open in 2027.
Li also said BYD is looking to snap up struggling legacy brands in Europe, citing Stellantis’ Maserati luxury brand as “very interesting”.
Stellantis, a French-Italian group whose brands also include Peugeot and Fiat, announced last week that it was considering selling an underutilised factory in Spain to its Chinese joint venture partner Leapmotor.
Two Stellantis facilities in Italy are operating well below capacity. The Cassino plant in the province of Frosinone produced just 2,916 cars in the first quarter of 2026 — a fall of 37.4% — running at five to six days a month, according to a Fim-Cisl report cited by Italian press.
The historic Mirafiori plant in Turin has been reduced to producing only the Fiat 500 hybrid and electric models.
The European car market has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic downturn, and its factories are operating at an average of only half capacity.
It also faces an onslaught from Chinese carmakers, whose rapidly advancing technical prowess and low production costs pose major risks to global rivals.
Stellantis did not immediately comment on BYD’s plans.
