BYD signs electric vehicle cooperation agreement with Brazilian taxi-hailing software 99

Brazil's ride-hailing app 99 said on July 12 that it had signed a partnership agreement with Chinese electric carmaker BYD to begin testing an electric car developed for its ride-hailing app drivers, according to Reuters .

The electric vehicle, developed by BYD and China's Didi Chuxing, will begin testing this week in Brazil's "financial capital" Sao Paulo, with the goal of accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles in 99 fleets.

99 is Uber's biggest competitor in Brazil and a subsidiary of Didi.The company plans to have more than 300 electric vehicles by the end of the year.Brazil has more than 750,000 monthly active drivers and more than 20 million users.99 has pledged to register 10,000 electric vehicles on its platform by 2025.

Image source: BYD

BYD is one of the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturers and an important partner of Didi in China.Didi has registered more than 1 million electric and hybrid vehicles on its platform in China.

On November 16, 2020, on Didi Chuxing's "Didi Open Day", Didi officially released the world's first customizedonline car-hailing D1 jointly built with BYD.D1 is specially designed for online car-hailing travel scenarios. It is customized in many aspects such as in-car human-computer interaction, driver-passenger experience, and car networking. It can be described as a new species that combines travel companies and car companies under the trend of car sharing.In addition, the D1 adopts technologies such as BYD blade batteries and is equipped with a permanent magnet synchronous motor with a maximum power of 100kW and a NEDC cruising range of about 418km.

Thiago Hipolito, director of innovation at 99, said, “China has achieved mass adoption of electric vehicles through ride-hailing software, and based on this, there is a need for infrastructure, such as electric vehicle charging stations.” 99 hopes to replicate this model in Brazil.