Plucky Shenzhen based automotive company, BYD, have signed a shock agreement with Toyota, the worlds biggest car company which will see the two work together in the Chinese market.
Under the deal, Toyota will continue to produce its vehicles at various facilities around China including Changchun, Tianjin, and Changchun, and BYD will keep its own factories in Xi’an and Shenzhen but Toyota vehicles will be produced by BYD at a fraction of the cost and given the Toyota logo.
Since its inception, BYD has routinely taken inspiration for its own car designs from Toyota, the best selling BYD F3 model looks very familiar to the last generation of Toyota Corolla, whilst the soon to be launched BYD S6 SUV is often called ‘The Chinese Lexus RX350′ by the Chinese automotive media, the BYD M6 MPV is also very similar to the Toyota Previa. One of the first vehicles to be produced under the agreement is the Toyota Camry, we have of coursed received early pictures of the car (below).
BYD official spokesman, Mr. Li, was quoted as saying “The Camry is a car that we have long admired, we are looking forward to producing this vehicle”.
Mass production of the vehicles is expected to begin in early 2012, the early cars will be using off the shelf Mitsubishi engines and also 2.0L BYD engines. Further details on the joint venture, or how it will operate, are not entirely clear. We will continue to observe the situation.
source: BYD and Toyota to form JV in China, first model spotted out testing
