In a significant move towards reducing petroleum dependence and advancing the green agenda, President Hakainde Hichilema has extended an invitation to BYD (Build Your Dream), a global leader in electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, to invest in Zambia. This collaboration seeks to leverage Zambia’s abundant mineral resources for the production of EV components, with the dual goals of job creation and environmental sustainability.
President Hichilema’s visit to BYD in Shenzhen, China, underscored Zambia’s commitment to transitioning towards cleaner transportation options while harnessing its natural wealth. The President expressed optimism about the potential of this partnership, given BYD’s innovative prowess and its staggering workforce of 700,000, which includes 70,000 engineers.
“We continued our tour of duty here in Shenzhen, China, with a visit to BYD (Build Your Dream), a company that is among the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturers, by volume of sales,” President Hichilema remarked during his visit. “Through their Chairman and founder, Wang Chuanfu, we invited BYD to consider investing in Zambia that has the right mineral resources necessary for producing their components.”
He further emphasized Zambia’s determination to transform into an industrial hub through value addition to its minerals, thereby creating job opportunities and fostering economic growth. Zambia currently grapples with soaring petroleum bills, contributing to the high cost of living. The intention is to gradually shift towards electric vehicles, particularly for public service transportation, to alleviate this burden.
“These innovations will equally reduce vehicle emissions and help address environmental challenges as we deal with climate change,” President Hichilema noted, highlighting the alignment of this initiative with global environmental goals.
One of the key benefits of the proposed collaboration lies in its potential to empower Zambia’s youth, especially those aspiring to venture into engineering. BYD’s unique policy encourages each engineer to innovate a new project or idea every day, resulting in a new patent every 15 days. This commitment to innovation aligns well with Zambia’s ambitions for its young population.
“Zambia on the move!” President Hichilema affirmed, underlining the nation’s determination to foster sustainable development and environmental stewardship.
President Hichilema emphasized the pivotal role of electric motor vehicles in mitigating environmental challenges associated with traditional gasoline and diesel vehicles. He reiterated that their continued development and adoption were central to achieving a cleaner and more sustainable future for transportation.
BYD Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu expressed his company’s readiness to establish a robust value chain in the electric car business in Zambia. He lauded Zambia’s stable business environment as conducive for such endeavors.
Still a good 20 years away for Zambia
20 years? Kuti? Zambia is 200 years behind China
We are better off using our resources to produce batteries to power our homes using solar than invest in electric cars. These cars will revert back to fossils very soon unless someone finds a way to make the batteries last long and more efficient.
That has already happened. Electric cars last longer than your full tank. All engineers are doing now is to improve the battery
BWANA, BATTERIES ARE MADE OUR OF NON ORGANIC MATERIALS . FOSSILS COME FROM ORGANIC MATERIALS .RESEARCH BEFORE MISLEADING YourYourself AND OTHERS
Hyundai used parts from different Car manufacturers to build thier early cars. Brazil used Scania trucks and converted them into marcopolo buses. We can develop an industry that converts petrol/diesel vehicles into electric. But we have to manufacture electric motors and batteries that powers them.
Ideally, if you’re doing well on your own others will knock on your door and ask to join you. Then you give them your terms. If you invite them they’ll give you their terms instead. And then you’ll offer things like free land, tax holidays, duty free imports and a lot of other things. This isn’t the first time a sitting President is doing it. KK even got tractors and trucks from Romania, Yugoslavia etc and some loans ended up with the vultures. So there’s nothing to celebrate here. Why can’t we do it ourselves?
We are even failing to provide mealie meal and we can’t even have electricity 24hrs and we thinking about electric cars…Africans we joke too much…we give a mine to Vandeta which is currently struggling Financially and its bebt now they will use our resources as collateral because is in US$2 billion dollar debt…We have been fooled twice…at first Vandeta got a loan of 30 million dollars and made a profit of almost 1 billion dollars from our minerals
Uganda has created a bus that runs on solar but you can see Noone is interested until the same bus arrives from Europe. Brainwashed Africans
Remember, even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
Even a f00l who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
Thinking about electric cars when we can’t even deal with cholera and Malaria….filthy and garbage everywhere
@Grant Kolala. Can you imagine these empty suits priorities. Load shedding and water shortages still exists, women and children lining up to buy mealie meal,…and these chaps are thinking about electric cars. SMH
We can not even deal with medicines in hospitals, agriculture and mining. This trip was just a gate-away from being shown a pamela in Chawama.