BYD’s Latin American footprint has stopped looking like an export experiment and started behaving like a regional manufacturing base. By June 2026 the Camaçari complex in Bahia, Brazil — the company’s largest factory outside China — has rolled out more than 70,000 vehicles since hot-line start-up in October 2025, and a freshly inked 100,000-unit order has tied Argentina and Mexico into the same Made-in-China supply line.
Bahia: From New Plant to Regional Anchor
The Camaçari site now employs over 6,000 direct workers, with another 3,000-hire wave announced for March 2026 push the headcount toward 6,200 once phase-two construction wraps. Today’s run-rate of 150,000 vehicles per year is the floor, not the ceiling — BYD’s long-term target is 600,000 units annually, with a Brazil-built blade-LFP cell line co-located on the same 4.65 million m² campus. Local value-added share is being pushed to 50% by early 2027, a benchmark few foreign-owned EV plants have hit in the region.
Argentina and Mexico: One Plant, Two Export Markets
On March 13 2026 Stella Li, BYD’s Executive Vice President and CEO for the Americas and Europe, used a meeting in Brasília with President Lula and Bahia Governor Jerônimo Rodrigues to confirm a binding 100,000-vehicle order split 50/50 between Argentina and Mexico. The block will be built in Bahia rather than shipped from Shenzhen — a structural shift that lets BYD use Brazil’s MERCOSUR access for Argentina and short-haul logistics for Mexico, instead of trans-Pacific freight.
Why It Matters for Made-in-China Auto Strategy
Camaçari is becoming the template for how Chinese automakers convert a single overseas plant into a regional hub. BYD is already Brazil’s bestselling Chinese brand, with the Dolphin Mini (Seagull) topping Bahia state and the BYD King leading the local sedan retail leaderboard. iEVChina has the full H1 2026 breakdown, including cumulative-delivery curves, capacity ladder and the Argentina-Mexico order mechanics. For watchers of Chinese export auto strategy, the takeaway is simple: the next wave of Made-in-China cars in Latin America will increasingly be built in Latin America, not landed there. The Bahia template also gives BYD a tariff-protected base for any future US-bound product that might otherwise face import barriers, and it gives Argentina and Mexico a near-shored supply line that does not rely on a Pacific crossing.
Source: official disclosure / iEVChina analysis
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