Sunday, 16 August 2026

BYD sales representatives in Argentina are handing over 12 to 15 cars a day to buyers trading in gas-powered vehicles, according to Inside Climate News, for a brand many of those buyers had never heard of just six months earlier.

The surge follows a policy shift by President Javier Milei, who scrapped import tariffs on qualifying lower-cost electric vehicles as part of a wider effort to open Argentina's economy to foreign competition, Inside Climate News reported.

Based on sales projections cited by the outlet, Argentina may hold a higher EV market share than the United States by the end of 2026 or early 2027.

Provincial and municipal incentives sit alongside the tariff change. Inside Climate News reported that EV drivers in Buenos Aires are exempt from road tolls, while in Córdoba the provincial utility gives EV owners a discount on their electricity bills.

The daily delivery pace reported by the outlet reflects trade-ins rather than first-time buyers: customers are swapping combustion cars for a marque that was largely unknown in the market half a year before.

BYD overtook Tesla in late 2025 to become the world's leading EV manufacturer, according to Inside Climate News.

Zijin Longking presented the all-electric ZL230E haul truck at a media ceremony in Longyan City, Fujian Province, according to Electrek. The outlet described the vehicle as the largest-tonnage pure electric mining truck in China, with a gross vehicle weight of 350 tons.

The truck was developed with EACON, an autonomous mining company based in Australia, Electrek reported.

EACON currently runs more than 3,100 autonomous trucks across more than 40 large-scale mines, according to the same report. That installed base gives the partnership a working autonomy stack to pair with the battery-electric drivetrain on the ZL230E.

Electrek framed the launch as another step for China's "new energy" mining equipment.

The Freelander 8 is the debut model of the Chery-JLR Freelander brand in China, according to Electrek. Electrek reported that more than 10,000 customers lined up for the SUV, which starts at 339,900 yuan, more than USD 50,000.

The powertrain is a range-extended setup rather than a pure battery drivetrain. Electrek said a 1.5-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine works as a range extender alongside a 60.3 kWh battery, with a pair of electric motors sending 610 kW to both axles.

Driver-assistance hardware comes as standard fitment across the range. Every Freelander 8 ships with Huawei's Qiankun ADS 5 advanced driver assistance system, running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8397 chip, per Electrek.

The pricing position matters for how the joint venture reads that order book. At 339,900 yuan, the Freelander 8 sits above the USD 50,000 mark that Electrek used to frame the early demand, placing the first Chery-JLR product in premium territory from launch rather than at an entry price point.

The hardware choices point to a domestic supply base for the software-defined layer of the vehicle. Rather than an in-house assistance stack, the Freelander brand pairs Huawei's Qiankun ADS 5 with Qualcomm silicon on every unit sold, according to Electrek.