BYD opens shop in the Caribbean with 10 new markets planned by the end of 2024
China’s leading EV maker, BYD, is quickly gaining ground in overseas markets. BYD opened its first store in the Caribbean as its global expansion heats up. The EV leader plans to enter ten new markets by the end of the year.
After setting a new weekly sales record in early May, BYD nearly topped its all-time sales record last month.
With 331,817 new energy vehicles (EVs and PHEVs) sold in May (+38% YOY), BYD posted its second-highest sales month ever. Of them, nearly 146,400 were fully electric. BYD has sold 580,974 all-electric vehicles so far this year, up 19% compared to the 488,600 sold a year ago.
BYD’s growing EV sales were fueled by price cuts and new lower-priced models launched earlier this year.
Its cheapest electric car, the BYD Seagull EV Honor Edition, starts at just $9,700 (69,800 yuan) in China.
The Seagull EV is already rolling out in overseas markets. BYD launched the “Dolphin Mini” (as it’s called overseas) in Brazil, starting at around $20,000 (99,800 BRL). It’s available in two models with up to 236 miles (390 km) of NEDC range. In Mexico, it starts at $19,780 (358,800 pesos).
BYD’s Seagull (Dolphin Mini) is expected to launch in Europe next year as one of the most affordable EVs on the market.
Despite potential tariffs, BYD still expects the low-cost EV to start at less than 20,000 euros ($21,500), still thousands lower than its rivals. With two plants planned in the region, BYD doesn’t expect any significant impacts from the potential tariffs on EVs made in China.
BYD takes on the Caribbean as first shop opens up
Although BYD has been selling EVs in the Caribbean for several years now, the automaker is now opening its first store in the region.
BYD announced the grand opening of its first dealership in the Caribbean last week. The new shop is located in Port of Spain, the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, but BYD plans to expand sales to new markets.
According to CarNewsChina, BYD plans to expand to 10 more countries by the end of 2024. BYD plans to open shops in Jamaica, Barbados, and the Cayman Islands.
BYD was already the top-selling EV maker in Brazil last year, but new models and dealerships are expected to fuel its momentum.
BYD launched its first pickup last month in Mexico, the Shark PHEV. Starting at 899,980 pesos ($53,400), BYD Shark will rival Toyota’s Hilux and Ford Ranger models in the region.
Powered by a 29.58 kWh BYD Blade battery, the Shark PHEV has 100 km (62 mi) all-electric NEDC range. Its combined range is 840 km (522 mi).
BYD is expanding into other segments, including mid-size SUVs. BYD’s new Sea Lion 07 is poised to compete with Tesla’s best-selling Model Y, staring at just 189,800 yuan ($26,250) in China.
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Environment
Elon Musk Tapped to Lead New ‘DOGE’ Department—Despite the Government Already Having One for Efficiency
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is to officially join Trump’s administration as the co-head of the new US Department of Government Efficiency – a second federal department with the goal of making government spending more efficient.
You can’t get more ironic than that.
Throughout the elections, Musk, who is already CEO of Tesla, and SpaceX, a well as the defacto head of X, xAI, Neuralink, and the Boring Company, has been floating the idea to add to his workload by joining the Trump’s administration to lead a new department aimed at making the federal government more efficient.
He has been calling it the “Department of Government Efficiency”, which spells out ‘DOGE’, a meme that Musk appears to enjoy.
Well, now Trump appears to want to be going through with this idea.
He announced the new department and Musk as head, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, in a statement today:
I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”). Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the “Save America” Movement. “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” stated Mr. Musk.
What’s most ironic is that there’s already a federal department with the goal of cutting government waste and ensuring efficiency: the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO’s main objectives are:
- auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively;
- investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities;
- reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives;
- performing policy analyses and outlining options for congressional consideration;
- issuing legal decisions and opinions;
- advising Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient and effective
It sounds similar to what Musk described when talking about his DOGE, but Trump hasn’t gone into many details other than it will “cut waste.”
He also has a confusing message as he compares the initiative, which is supposed to cut government spending, to “The Manhattan project”, a massive and expensive government project.
Trump said that DOGE will help the government “drive large scale structural reform”:
It will become, potentially, “The Manhattan Project” of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of “DOGE” for a very long time. To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.
The statement also noted that DOGE will only operate until July 4, 2026.
Musk has previously claimed that he could cut at least $2 trillion dollars of the $6.5 trillion dollar US federal budget.
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A pump jack in Midland, Texas, US, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
Anthony Prieto | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oil prices may see a drastic fall in the event that oil alliance OPEC+ unwinds its existing output cuts, said market watchers who are predicting a bearish year ahead for crude.
“There is more fear about 2025’s oil prices than there has been since years — any year I can remember, since the Arab Spring,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, an oil price reporting agency.
“You could get down to $30 or $40 a barrel if OPEC unwound and didn’t have any kind of real agreement to rein in production. They’ve seen their market share really dwindle through the years,” Kloza added.
A decline to $40 a barrel would mean around a 40% erasure of current crude prices. Global benchmark Brent is currently trading at $72 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures are around $68 per barrel.
Oil prices year-to-date
Given that oil demand growth next year probably won’t be much more than 1 million barrels a day, a full unwinding of OPEC+ supply cuts in 2025 would “undoubtedly see a very steep slide in crude prices, possibly toward $40 a barrel,” Henning Gloystein, head of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group, told CNBC.
Similarly, MST Marquee’s senior energy analyst Saul Kavonic posited that should OPEC+ unwind cuts without regard to demand, it would “effectively amount to a price war over market share that could send oil to lows not seen since Covid.”
However, the alliance is more likely to opt for a gradual unwinding early next year, compared to a full scale and immediate one, the analysts said.
Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double.
Martoccia Francesco
Energy strategist at Citi
The oil cartel has been exercising discipline in maintaining its voluntary output cuts, to the point of extending them.
In September, OPEC+ postponed plans to begin gradually rolling back on the 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts by two months in an effort to stem the slide of oil prices. The 2.2 million bpd cut, which was implemented over the second and third quarters, had been due to expire at the end of September.
At the start of this month, the oil cartel again decided to delay the planned oil output increase by another month to the end of December.
Oil prices have been weighed by a sluggish post-Covid recovery in demand from China, the world’s second-largest economy and leading crude oil importer. In its monthly report released Tuesday, OPEC lowered its 2025 global oil demand growth forecast from 1.6 million barrels per day to 1.5 million barrels per day.
The pressured prices were also conflagrated by a perceivably oversupplied market, especially as key oil producers outside the OPEC alliance like the U.S., Canada, Guyana and Brazil are also planning to add supply, Gloystein highlighted.
Bearish year ahead for oil
The market consensus is that there’ll be a “substantial” oil stock build next year, said Citibank energy strategist Martoccia Francesco.
“Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double… reaching as much as 1.6 million barrels per day,” said Francesco.
Even if OPEC+ doesn’t unwind the cuts, the future ofl prices is still looking break. Citi analysts expect Brent price to average $60 per barrel next year.
Further fueling the bearish outlook is the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whose return is associated by some with a potential trade war, said analysts who spoke to CNBC.
“If we do get a trade war — and a lot of economists think that a trade war is possible, and particularly against China — we could see much, much lower prices,” said OPIS’ Kloza.
Trump has also touted a “drill baby drill” policy for U.S. producers, vowing to cut energy prices in half.
For that to happen to retail gasoline prices, oil would need to drop to “below $40” per barrel, said Matt Smith, Kpler’s lead oil analyst.
Right now, retail gasoline prices are at a “sweet spot” at $3 per gallon, where consumers do not feel the pinch and input prices are still sufficiently high for producers, Smith added.
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