Brazil shuts down BYD factory over ‘slavery’ concerns

Brazil shut down a Chinese-run electric vehicle factory, saying that workers’ conditions amounted to “slavery.”

The public prosecutor said that at BYD’s factory in Camaçari city, the company’s first EV site outside China, staff were forced to sleep on beds without mattresses, shared one bathroom between 31 workers, and had passports and wages withheld.

BYD has expanded rapidly in recent years, and sold more EVs than Tesla in the last quarter of 2023. Brazil is its largest overseas market by a long way, the BBC reported. China’s growing EV dominance, backed by heavy government subsidies that rivals see as unfair support, has raised global concern, and the EU and US have imposed retaliatory tariffs.