BYD: New Era with Global Design Centre

Zaventem, Belgium –BYD is pushing into a new era with the launch of its new Global Design Center at its global headquarters in Shenzhen, China. BYD believes the launch of the new Design Center will help take the company from its past as a technology and components supplier to a future where it sells more products directly to end users and consumers.

“Technology is BYD’s hard strength, and design will become the soft strength of the company,” said Wang Chuanfu, President and Chairman of BYD. “Both technology and design must be grasped firmly, to transform BYD’s products from being solely powered by ‘technology’ to leveraging the combined power of ‘technology + design’.”

The 12,600 square meters large BYD Design Center is the warm beating heart of design for the company and is responsible for future automotive, rail, and other transportation designs. BYD's design team is led by Wolfgang Egger. The Oberstdorf (Germany) born designer has worked on numerous award-winning vehicles in previous roles with leading Italian and German automakers including Audi, Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo. Wolfgang Egger explains: “I came to BYD in 2016 as I was attracted by the opportunity at the company. Together with my team we can push BYD into the next era of EV-mobility. I like it when people start to smile when they see our vehicles. It means that we have created an appealing design with passion.”

At BYD Egger works together with a team of more than 600 designers from over 10 countries including Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany, carrying out design in multiple locations around the globe for BYD. BYD Global Interior Design Director Michele Jauch-Paganetti complements his leadership team forming the core of the automotive design team at the new facility. Relying on its Global Design Center, BYD has established an entire set of world-class new systems, new processes, and new standards for design from creative divergence, digital design, and clay model production to virtual reality (VR) evaluation, ergonomic validation, as well as quality control and validation.

The design facility was created to facilitate an open, communicative, and creative work environment that BYD believes will provide fertile ground for its future designs to grow out of.

It will feature cutting-edge design tools for its team to utilize in the creative process including Italian five-axis processing equipment for clay modeling, German clay-cutting tools that can modify designs in less than 24 hours, and a virtual reality (VR) system that enables 1:1 comparisons of full-sized virtual models.

About BYD

BYD is a multinational high-tech company devoted to leveraging technological innovations for a better life. Founded in 1995 as a rechargeable battery maker, BYD now boasts a diverse business scope covering automobiles, rail transit, new energy, and electronics, with over 30 industrial parks in China, the United States, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Hungary, and India. From energy generation and storage to its applications, BYD is dedicated to providing zero-emission energy solutions that reduce global reliance on fossil fuels. Its new energy vehicle footprint now covers 6 continents, over 70 countries and regions, and more than 400 cities. Listed in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, the company is known to be a Fortune Global 500 enterprise that furnishes innovations in pursuit of a greener world.

About BYD Auto

Founded in 2003, BYD Auto is the automotive subsidiary of BYD, a multinational high-tech company devoted to leveraging technological innovations for a better life. Aiming to accelerate the green transition of the global transportation sector, BYD Auto focuses on developing pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The company has mastered the core technologies of the entire industrial chain of new energy vehicles, such as batteries, electric motors, electronic controllers, and automotive-grade semiconductors. It has witnessed in recent years significant technological advancements, including the Blade Battery, the DM-i and DM-p hybrid technology, the e-Platform 3.0, and the CTB technology. The company is the world’s first carmaker to stop the production of fossil-fueled vehicles on EV shift and has remained top of new energy passenger vehicle sales in China for 9 years in a row.

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