BYD's Contradictory Week: 30,000 SUV Pre-Orders Collide With Slavery Allegations on Two Continents
Published on 04/26/2026 at 22:51 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
BYD is living through a week of extremes. The Chinese electric vehicle giant has just notched up 30,000 pre-orders for its flagship Great Tang SUV in a single day — yet simultaneously finds itself fighting allegations of forced labor at construction sites in Brazil and Hungary, just as it prepares to release what analysts expect to be sharply weaker first-quarter earnings.
The Great Tang's Instant Hit
The company opened pre-sales for the Great Tang on April 24 at the Beijing Auto Show. Within 24 hours, orders had surged past 30,000. The seven-seat SUV, stretching more than 5.3 meters in length, carries a price tag of between 250,000 and 320,000 yuan — roughly $36,000 to $47,000 at current exchange rates.
The strong reception is all the more striking given the state of BYD's domestic business. First-quarter 2026 sales in China collapsed 61.5% year-on-year to just 303,000 units. The home market has become a battlefield of price cuts, squeezing margins across the industry.
Alongside the Great Tang, BYD's luxury Denza brand unveiled the Denza Z, an electric sports car boasting over 1,000 horsepower. Its three electric motors push the car from zero to 100 km/h in under two seconds. The company's proprietary "Flash Charging 2.0" system can take the battery from 10% to 97% in nine minutes.
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Brazil: Blacklisted for "Slave-Like" Conditions
On April 26 — the same weekend the auto show buzz was at its peak — reports emerged that Brazil had placed BYD on its official "lista suja," or dirty list, of employers found to have subjected workers to conditions resembling slavery. The designation stems from a December 2024 raid at the company's construction site in Camaçari, Bahia.
Inspectors found 471 Chinese workers without valid entry documents on the premises. Of those, 163 were freed from what authorities described as slave-like conditions. Tax auditors also uncovered evidence that BYD itself had misled Brazilian immigration authorities.
The consequences are immediate and serious. Companies on the blacklist lose access to state-backed credit and face increased scrutiny from private banks — including those that finance auto dealers and car buyers. However, the legal situation remains fluid. A Brazilian court temporarily suspended BYD's inclusion on the list, arguing that the construction workers were not directly employed by BYD. In January, the company reached a settlement with Brazil's labor prosecutors, paying around 40 million Brazilian reais — roughly $8 million. Removal from the list is not automatic: BYD would need two consecutive years without fresh violations to be struck off.
Hungary: Same Contractor, Same Allegations
The Brazilian scandal has a parallel in Europe. The NGO China Labor Watch published a report alleging labor abuses at BYD's factory site in Szeged, Hungary — the company's first European plant, which is set to begin series production this quarter. BYD is investing up to €4 billion in the facility, which will have an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles for the European market.
According to the report, Chinese migrant workers at the Szeged site were required to work seven days a week, up to 14 hours daily, without overtime pay. Wages were reportedly delayed by up to three months. High recruitment fees created a system of debt bondage. In February 2026, a Chinese worker died on the site; Hungarian authorities are investigating.
In both cases, BYD has pointed the finger at its subcontractor, the Jinjiang Group, which was involved in construction at both the Brazilian and Hungarian sites.
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Earnings Day: What to Watch
BYD's board meets in Shenzhen on April 28 to approve the unaudited first-quarter 2026 results. Analysts expect revenue of around 134 billion yuan — a drop of more than 21% from the prior year. Earnings per share are forecast at 0.55 yuan, nearly halved year-on-year. The comparison period is particularly punishing: in the first quarter of 2025, BYD had doubled its net profit.
The Szeged plant is central to BYD's strategy of sidestepping the European Union's 17% retaliatory tariffs on Chinese-made EVs. If the labor allegations draw deeper scrutiny from European regulators, that strategy could face serious headwinds.
BYD's OTC-traded shares closed Friday at $12.94, down 1.82%, after six consecutive losing sessions. For the year to date, the stock is still up roughly 16%, suggesting the market had already priced in a weak quarter. Whether the reputational damage from Brazil and Hungary changes that calculus will become clear when the numbers land on Monday.
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