Just the previous week, BYD officially announced that it would enter the UK passenger car market. This week, BYD signed a purchase contract with a native car rental company.
According to a press release that was issued today, BYD recently formed a partnership with Octopus Electric Vehicles (Octopus EV). The car rental company plans to purchase 5,000 BYD electric vehicles over the course of the next three years.
The initial purchase also included BYD’s all-electric C-segment SUV, the Atto 3, which debuted in the UK earlier this month.
The salary sacrifice program
As the Chinese maker of new energy vehicles (NEVs) reported, the Salary Sacrifice program will be one of the most cost-effective ways to rent BYD vehicles in the United Kingdom. This program will be used to make the vehicles available.
CNEVPOST reports that the beginning of this commercial relationship paves the way for Octopus EV to become a BYD partner for the Salary Sacrifice scheme in the UK. There are plans for additional orders soon.
A salary sacrifice program is a contract between an employer and an employee to reduce the amount of cash compensation that the employee is entitled to receive, typically in exchange for a benefit that is not monetary in nature.
Octopus EV is a corporation of Octopus Energy Group, one of Europe’s biggest renewable energy investors, based in the UK. Octopus EV was established in 2018.
Through its parent company, Octopus EV can provide customers various services, such as leasing electric vehicles, installing charging posts, and offering special discounted rates.
BYD enters UK’s market
On March 8, BYD announced that it would begin offering the Atto 3, the company’s first passenger car, for sale in the United Kingdom.
Last week, BYD announced that the model would have a starting price in the UK of £36,490 ($43,230) and that local shipments would start on March 15.
The company has announced that the first BYD pioneer stores will open very soon in the core cities of the United Kingdom, including Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, and Milton Keynes.
The Atto 3, also identified as the Yuan Plus in China, became available for the first time on February 19, 2022. It is the first SUV built on BYD’s all-electric e-platform 3.0 platform.
BYD announced on October 4, 2022, that it had formed a partnership with the German car rental company SIXT, which had committed to purchasing 100,000 electric vehicles from BYD over the next few years.
The partnership was initiated when SIXT placed a batch of thousands of all-electric vehicles manufactured by BYD. Based on a press release issued at the time, the first BYD all-electric vehicle that SIXT planned to offer to its customers was also the ATTO 3.
See Also:
- Vauxhall and Octopus Energy joined hands to improve EV charging at home and on the road
- Octopus Energy expands UK’s largest virtual power plant
- Volkswagen ID. Buzz combines with Ohme’s Home Pro for the ultimate EV package
- Ohme is the new smart EV charging choice for the Volkswagen Group
- BYD is developing an all-electric ute
