BYD’s first $130mn EV battery plant gets off ground in Vietnam

The signing ceremony and groundbreaking took place at the Kim Long Motor automobile manufacturing and assembly industrial park in Hue City, central Vietnam.

Under the deal, China's BYD Battery, a global leader in batteries and new energy vehicles, will provide technical support and technology transfer for the project.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's Kim Long Motor will invest in the construction of a new energy battery factory.

The project aims to enable Vietnamese enterprises to gradually master battery production technology, widely regarded as the most critical component determining the performance and safety of electric vehicles, thereby strengthening the competitiveness of Vietnam’s automotive industry.

The factory will be located in the Kim Long Motor automobile manufacturing and assembly industrial park in Chan May - Lang Co Commune.

It will specialize in producing batteries for electric trucks, buses, minibuses, and minivans, serving domestic demand while also targeting export markets.

The batteries will be integrated into commercial electric vehicles manufactured by Kim Long Motor under the ‘Made in Vietnam’ brand.

The company is currently researching and developing a 34-seater electric sleeper bus using BYD battery technology, which is expected to be the first new-energy sleeper bus model in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

During the first phase of the project, the factory will be built on an area of 4.4 hectares, with a designed capacity of three GWh per year.

In phase two, the facility will be widened to 10 hectares, doubling its total capacity to six GWh annually and extending its production to batteries for cars.

Dao Viet Anh, CEO of Kim Long Motor, said the partnership with BYD and the investment in battery manufacturing reflected the firm’s long-term strategy in EV development, focusing on mastering core technologies and building a closed, integrated value chain.

Once in place, the BYD battery plant is expected to help Kim Long Motor raise its localization rate to over 80 percent by the second quarter of 2026, while contributing to the formation of a regional-scale hub for battery and electric vehicle manufacturing in Vietnam.