BYD Recalls Over 50,000 Hot-Selling Units
According to an announcement by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), domestic NEV developer BYD has decided from July 29 to recall some Tang DM electric vehicles produced between April 5, 2021, and April 18, 2022, totaling 52,928 units.
The announcement shows that the reason for the recall is that some vehicle power battery pack trays have water ingress risks, which may cause high-voltage system electrical discharge and pose potential safety hazards.
In April this year, BYD announced the recall of 9,663 Tang DM electric vehicles produced from between September 2, 2021, and March 14, 2022. The expanded recall announced recently involves above five times more vehicles than the previous one.
The April recall explained the reasons in more detail: due to manufacturing issues, some vehicle power battery pack trays have an uneven surface of the tray breather valve, which is at risk of water ingress. This may cause the electrical circuit failure of the power battery system, and in extreme cases, it may cause the risk of thermal runaway of the power battery, which has potential safety hazards.
BYD said that it will entrust authorized dealers to inspect vehicles within the scope of the recall and replace the battery pack free of charge if there is leakage in the battery pack or the surface of the tray breather valve is uneven.
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The Tang DMs involved in the recall belong to the hybrid products of the Tang family in BYD’s “Dynasty Series,” which are specifically divided into two models: Tang DM-i and Tang DM-p. The former sells for between 205,800 yuan ($30,499) and 282,800 yuan ($41,910), while the latter has recently started pre-sale with prices ranging from 292,800 yuan ($43,392) to 332,800 yuan ($49,320). In February this year, the sales volume of Tang DM exceeded 10,000 units for the first time, reaching the top of the sales volume of medium and large SUVs for that month.
According to BYD’s official data, the Tang family (including Tang EV and Tang DM) sold more than 340,000 units as of the end of June this year, of which the number of vehicles recalled accounted for about 18%.
As the supply chains of most car companies have been affected by the pandemic, BYD was the global NEV sales champion in the first half of the year by virtue of its independent supply capacity. According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, in the first half of 2022, BYD sold 633,800 NEVs, up 317.6% year-on-year, with a market share of 28.2%. Among them, hybrid models are hot-selling products, contributing half of BYD sales in the first half of the year.
