For decades, Sri Lanka’s roads told a familiar story of sturdy imported Japanese sedans and Indian-built hatchbacks that included marques like Toyota, Nissan and Suzuki. But a quiet revolution is now underway, with electric vehicles from BYD and other Chinese brands ascendant.The island nation’s automobile industry mostly supplies imported cars.
This country of 23 million has only a few small assembly and manufacturing plants. The market has been dormant since the government imposed a unilateral vehicle import ban in 2020 to preserve scarce foreign reserves during the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.