BYD opens battery plant in Qinghai

Chinese automaker BYD Co unveiled on Wednesday a new battery production plant for electric vehicles, and said the unit would be the largest of its kind in the world after it achieves full capacity in 2019.

The factory, located in western China's Qinghai province, will start full operation next year, with an annual capacity of 24 gigawatt-hours. Analysts expect the move by BYD to add fuel to the domestic burgeoning EV battery industry and zoom ahead of foreign counterparts.

Wang Chuanfu, chairman of the Shenzhen-based company, said at the launch ceremony, that the new energy automobile industry is expected to pick up more substantially, as governments the world over have issued a timeline to ban traditional fuel vehicles.