BYD’s $20m Aussie stash to help hunt Toyota
BYD concedes it is still experiencing ‘growing pains’ in Australia, but insists a new $20 million investment will help shore up its fundamentals in keeping its customers’ cars on the road.
That’s the word from BYD‘s local Chief Operating Officer, Stephen Collins, who says a massive dealership rollout will put the Chinese brand hot on the heels of Nissan, Ford and Toyota in terms of footprint, and which is backed by a massive investment in spare parts and warehousing.
The paint is still drying on a new parts warehouse in Victoria, where Mr Collins says the brand has got $20m worth of parts housed and ready to send to dealers when required.
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“I would say, right now, we’re probably working harder on service, capacity, parts, supply, all those fundamentals,” Mr Collins said.
“I guess the key points for me, by the middle of this year, we’ll have 150 dealers. There are a couple of exceptions, but (almost) every one of those dealers will have full parts and service.
“We’ve just, six months ago, built a parts warehouse here in Melbourne, which is 20,000 square meters. We’ve got $20 million worth of parts sitting in it. We are not shy about stocking parts.
“We’re working really hard to make the experience good. If the car was unfortunately off the road, to make it as short as possible.”
BYD has come under fire from some owners in Australia on blogs for lengthy delays for spare parts after mechanical issues or accidents, with Mr Collins conceding his brand has faced “growing pains”.
“I’ve been pretty open in saying it. With the volume of growth we’ve had, you know, we’ve had some growing pains and we haven’t eliminated all of those as yet.
“But we’ve hired a lot of experienced people, we’re putting better processes in place, and our dealer partners are really committed to it. So yeah, there’s a lot of facets to it. It’s a major challenge.”
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