BANGKOK (Reuters) – China’s BYD will purchase a 20% stake in its native distributor Rever Automotive in Thailand, its largest market outdoors of China the place it’s an electrical car market chief, the businesses mentioned Saturday.The Shenzhen-based automaker opened its first manufacturing unit in Southeast Asia in Thailand this week. The $490 million manufacturing unit can have an annual manufacturing capability of 150,000 automobiles and make use of 10,000 employees.Rever Automotive, which has over 100 showrooms in Thailand, launched the sale of BYD automobiles in 2022 and BYD quickly grew to become the nation’s top-selling EV model.”We’re thrilled to deepen our partnership to speed up the adoption of electrical automobiles and contribute to Thailand’s transition in the direction of a extra sustainable future,” mentioned Liu Xueliang, BYD’s Asia-Pacific auto gross sales common supervisor.Thailand is a regional auto meeting and export hub, and has lengthy been dominated by Japanese automobile makers equivalent to Toyota Motor, and Honda Motor Co and Isuzu Motors.Within the first quarter of 2024, BYD commanded a 46% share of Thailand’s EV phase and is the third-largest participant in passenger automobiles, in line with analysis agency Counterpoint.The acquisition comes as Rever faces a authorities investigation over steep reductions which have left some previous clients feeling they overpaid for his or her automobiles.(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; edited by Jason Neely)