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China’s BYD Will Deliver 719 Cars to Cuba, to Be Used by Tourists as Rentals

This year Cuba made a couple of daring moves that would never have happened if Fidel Castro were still running the country. With the glorious leader sick and his brother in charge of the nation, things seem to have taken a turn for the better.
BYD Car 1 photo
Photo: BYD
Raul Castro not only met with Barack Obama, but he also took further steps to bring the country he now runs out of international isolation. One of these moves was to lift the ban on importing new cars for the domestic market.

That allowed Cubans to purchase new autos after a nearly 55-year long hiatus and it was met with high hopes. The problem was, the prices the cars had upon the market’s reopening were sky high and few people could actually afford them.

Now there’s news that the Cuban government decided to purchase 719 brand new cars that would be offered to tourist for renting purposes. Unfortunately for enthusiasts in the country (or future visitors) they are BYD models coming in from China.

The decision does make sense to some degree, considering the limited resources the country has at its disposal. Furthermore, the two nations have similar political systems and are helping each other out.

The problem that is being solved this way in China is the fact that the auto industry just can’t seem to get exports going as it has been experiencing a drop of 13 percent on a year-to-year basis from January to May. That’s just the latest data coming in from China, but things haven’t been going all that swell for a long time now.

In the meantime, the home market remains the biggest revenue generator for Chinese car companies if we’re to look at the numbers. There simply isn’t room for comparison as only 70,800 cars were exported in May compared to 1.9 million sales domestic according to Auto News Europe.

However, this could prove to be a real solution, selling cheap cars to developing countries and Cuba is not the first one to go down this path. What surprised some people was that the state decided to get conventional petrol-powered cars for its fleet instead of hybrids or electrics, both of which on offer from BYD. Then again, the infrastructure probably wouldn’t be there to support them anyway.
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