BYD office raided after Land Rover Defender copycat claims - report
The Dutch offices of Chinese car giant BYD have reportedly been raided by Jaguar Land Rover-appointed bailiffs, due to an uncanny Defender likeness.
China’s car industry was once the butt of many jokes, mainly concerning how its brands couldn’t design their own vehicles and would make knock-off designs of well established models.
Though China has grown to become a global superpower in the automotive industry, its manufacturers are still criticised for sometimes looking at the homework of other brands, as has been the case with Chery’s Jaecoo J7, referred to as the ‘Temu Range Rover’.
However, claims of copying designs have recently become serious, with The Times reporting the Netherlands offices of BYD was raided by Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) bailiffs, on suspicion that the Chinese marque had copied the design of the Defender SUV.
According to the publication, the raid occurred in August, and centred around JLR’s claims that the BYD Ti7 SUV had benefited from alleged reverse engineering of the technology in the Land Rover Defender.
The report claims JLR’s bailiffs were able to seize digital records from BYD’s Schiedam and Hoofddorp, something they were wanting to do before they could be destroyed.
Prior to the raid, BYD allegedly said it had attempted to cooperate with JLR’s requests for information, however following the move on its two offices, BYD’s lawyers said that “too many files were seized”.
While JLR is headquartered in the UK and BYD in China, The Times reports the raid took place in the Netherlands as it has previously been stricter on enforcing intellectual property theft.
A preliminary ruling has been scheduled to take place in The Hague this week.
Though the design of the two SUVs is similar, they differ greatly in their powertrains.
The Land Rover Defender is offered with a wide range of four- to eight-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, as well as a plug-in hybrid version. All Defenders are all-wheel drive.
Meanwhile, the BYD Ti7 is available as a plug-in hybrid (powered by a turbocharged 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine) with either front- or all-wheel drive, or as a rear- and all-wheel drive electric vehicle.
The BYD Ti7 is 4999mm long, 1995mm wide, 1865mm tall, and rides on a 2920mm wheelbase, slotting it in between the sizes of the Defender 110 and 130.
