Planet China: Fifteenth in a series about how Beijing’s trillion-dollar development plan is reshaping the globe—and the natural world.
CÓRDOBA, Argentina—Franco Bornancini’s iPhone buzzed relentlessly in his glass-walled office at a BYD dealership, racking up 90 customer questions during an hour-long meeting. A few feet away, the sales floor buzzed with the energy of a tech product launch.
“We’re like the Apple of vehicles,” said Bornancini, the dealership’s sales manager. BYD, the Chinese EV manufacturer, isn’t just selling cars—it’s offering customers “a different way of living,” he said.
BYD sales manager Franco Bornancini said that early Argentine buyers of the brand’s electric and hybrid vehicles are young, urban, affluent and tech-obsessed. Credit: Katie Surma/Inside Climate News
BYD sales reps are picking up weekend shifts just to keep pace, delivering 12 to 15 cars a day to customers trading in gas-powered vehicles for a brand that many had never heard of just six months earlier.
