Amjad Aziz Malik takes a picture at BYD’s exhibition hall at the company’s headquarters in Pingshan District. Photo by Wang Haolan 

The Asia-Pacific Media Forum (APMF) will be held in Shenzhen on Sept. 5. Beginning Sept. 3, media leaders, senior journalists and online content creators from across the Asia-Pacific region are visiting Shenzhen for field trips and reporting.

On Sept. 4, a media delegation visited BYD’s global headquarters in Pingshan District, touring its exhibition hall and intelligent testing workshops to gain an up-close look at the advanced manufacturing processes behind China’s new energy vehicles.

The journalists showed strong interest in BYD’s extreme-cold-weather testing facilities. Staff demonstrated an experiment in a -30℃ flash-charging chamber, showing that the vehicle could charge normally under harsh winter conditions. This was followed by a nail-penetration test, in which a punctured battery remained stable. The journalists documented each demonstration and engaged with engineers on site.

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Donovan Martin Sr., CEO and editor-in-chief of Canada’s Daily Scrum News, explored opportunities for practical industrial cooperation between China and Canada. He spoke highly of BYD’s new energy SUVs, noting that they could be well suited to Canada’s snowy and frigid winters.

“The SUVs they produce would go really well in Canada. I’m looking at the winter weather, and those vehicles would perform really well in such conditions.”

“Twelve minutes for a full recharge — that’s pretty impressive,” Martin said. “Such vehicle performance will go over really well in Canada’s frigid climate. There are a lot of opportunities for the two countries to share technology.”

Outside, the delegation watched a vehicle performance demonstration, with several members queuing up for test rides. Saurabh Gupta, a senior specialist at the Institute for China-America Studies, said he was most impressed by the integrated manufacturing process, which spans battery testing, vehicle design and production.

International journalists are drawn to BYD’s technological prowess at the company’s headquarters in Pingshan District. Photo from Pingshan Media Center

“This is something I’ve never seen before — everything is automated,” said Heru Andriyanto, editor-in-chief of The Jakarta Globe. He noted that BYD’s new plant in Indonesia had recently opened and said his colleagues back home were envious of his visit to the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen.

Summing up the experience in one word, he chose “cooperation,” stressing that the Asia-Pacific region needs to work together and move forward.