China's Global Electric Vehicle Boom
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Electric car sales have been growing worldwide, and the world's largest maker of such vehicles is China's BYD. Their revenue was over $100 billion last year, beating Tesla. To keep up their stunning growth and to avoid the pain of U.S. tariffs, BYD is expanding into emerging markets, especially Latin America. In Brazil, BYD cars are selling big, and the company is building a manufacturing plant.

But as NPR's Carrie Khan tells us, there have been some bumps in the road. Chinese car sales in Brazil are soaring, with BYD's electric autos leading the way. More than 76,000 sold last year, four times more than the previous year. And with ads like this one tailor-made for Brazilians, sales keep growing. Black.

Black and white archival shots of soccer legend Pelé flash amidst shiny color images of BYD's top-selling sedan, the King. Now the new king of the road, driver Edmilson Pita is hooked. As he follows a driving app through northern Bahia State's capital, Salvador, Pita says after a good morning charge, he just unhooks it. I do what I want.

And I take off to do my correrias, daily errands, he laughs. Pita is a police officer by day and Uber driver on nights and weekends. On sale now in Salvador, the king runs about $28,000 to $29,000. BYD, whose slogan is Build Your Dreams, has a financing deal with Uber, saving Pita there too. And BYD will take care of Bahia here.

It's taking over here, and once the new BYD plant opens in Bahia, it will totally dominate, he says. Pita's talking about BYD's nearly billion-dollar manufacturing complex under construction just 30 miles north in the city of Camasari. It's key to China's push into Latin America and the global south. BYD says it will put plants in Mexico, Hungary, and Turkey.

The new factory in Kamisari is huge. From a small hill above the main gate, the complex stretches far onto the horizon. When up and fully running, Chinese officials say it will employ 20,000 workers, building not only cars, but also electric batteries, solar panels, and green hydrogen. And in an irony lost on few, the plant is located on Henry Ford Avenue.

in the U.S. car manufacturer's old plant shuttered four years ago when Ford left Brazil.

The symbolism is evocative, says Ryan Berg of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. It's a message of where the future and forward was the past, that China is a stable and reliable trade partner, and the Americans are sometimes not. Berg studies China's growing influence in Latin America, which is shifting from building roads and bridges to investing in critical industries.

And that meshes with Brazil's leftist leaders' goals of building a greener and more diversified economy. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva personally lobbied China's Xi Jinping to bring BYD to Camasuri. BYD declined requests for a factory visit, citing safety concerns during its construction phase.

But there wasn't a lot of traffic passing through its main gate recently. In fact, construction has slowed ever since Brazilian officials say they found, quote, slave-like working conditions during an inspection late last year.

The workers were victims of international trafficking for the purpose of slave labor, says Rogério Paiva, a press advisor at Bahia's Labor Prosecutor's Office.

He says hundreds of Chinese workers were housed in overcrowded, unsanitary dwellings. Many have their passports taken away and work seven days a week in violation of Brazilian law. More than 160 have returned to China. The rest are now in local hotels. BYD says it fired the Chinese employment firm it was working with and is in talks with prosecutors to care for the rest of the workers.

But negotiations are limping along, no fines have been levied, and the opening date for the plant has been pushed to the end of the year. Julio Bonfim, with Camasari's Metalworkers Union, says he's made it clear to BYD that the union will not permit a large Chinese workforce.

He says he was surprised so many Chinese were brought into Brazil for the initial construction phase. The union will paralyze BYD if Chinese workers are put on the production line, he says. It will also demand best working practices.

Despite the tough talk, BYD has yet to finalize a collective bargaining contract and has only hired a limited amount of local workers. The company did not answer NPR's questions regarding the plant's operation. Locals aren't worrying, though, about future conditions. They just want jobs now, especially the former Ford workers. I joined Ford.

Clayton Alder worked at Ford for 18 years. He met his wife on the line, too. They both got severance pay when the plant closed, but the money was running out quickly and neither found steady work. They came out to the small piece of land they had about 30 miles up the coast and built a six-room hostel for budget tourists.

We have Wi-Fi, too, for those who want to stay connected, he says, showing off one of the rooms. But Alder says the income is only good during the summer months. The rest of the year, it's tough in this rural area. He's hoping for one of BYD's jobs and has even done training the state offered for those ready to work in the plant.

He's not worried about rumored culture clashes working with the Chinese. We're going to do everything we can to produce for them and we can all come to an understanding. He's ready to move back to town too and get back to work, he says. Which is good news for Kamasari.

Merchants like Ani Santos, who run a downtown beauty salon, says her sales never recouped once Ford left. A large company is coming to our city. There is no way it won't stimulate trade, and I just know everything is going to work out now, she said. There's no way it can't. Carrie Khan, NPR News, Camasari, Brazil.

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