BYD will consider building a second assembly plant in Europe in 2025 and will launch its Seagull electric car in Europe for less than 20,000 euros, the company's managing director for Europe, Michael Shu, said last week at the Future of the Car conference organised by the Financial Times. BYD hopes to become Europe's leading supplier of electric cars by the end of the century.

Electric cars typically cost about a third more than comparable fuel cars, mainly because of the high cost of batteries, which makes producing correspondingly cheaper cars quite difficult.

Last December BYD announced the construction of a new energy passenger car production base in the southeastern Hungarian city of Szeged, becoming the first Chinese carmaker to build a passenger car plant in the European Union.

Last October, BYD's passenger car business entered the Hungarian market for the first time - opening two shops in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, to display and sell three pure-electric models, the BYD ATTO 3 (Yuan PLUS), Dolphin and Seal.

A number of Chinese battery makers, including CATL, Yiwei Lithium Energy and Xinwangda, have also announced their investments in Hungary. Hungary currently ranks fourth in the world in terms of power battery production.

Hungary has become an important trade partner for China. Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping just visited the country. The two countries signed a total of 18 agreements. Hungary will take over the presidency of the EU Council later this year. Before the meeting, Xi said it was an opportunity to improve Europe-China relations.