Academy Award-winning actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio is now a brand ambassador for Chinese EV-maker BYD Auto.
According to Sixth Tone, the actor will help promote the company’s new-energy vehicles in China throughout 2017, pushing a similar agenda to the one he had last year when he formed his own team for the Beijing edition of the FIA Formula E championship.
“All over the world people are realizing that cars that run on fossil fuels are inefficient and a major threat to the planet,” stated the movie star. “I am very pleased to be joining an effort to increase the number of clean vehicles on the road in China and beyond.”
A report from website EV Sales found that between January and October of this year, BYD sold over 84,000 units, considerably more than Tesla, which sold 58,000 units. In China however, with more than 98% of electric vehicles currently produced by domestic companies, BYD has very little to fear from the American-EV maker.
Also, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, there’s been a year-on-year increase of 82.2% regarding new-energy vehicles sold there, or approximately 337,000 units in the first 10 months of 2016.
Furthermore, with China emitting more greenhouse gases than any other nation, electric cars are becoming more and more popular. Meanwhile the government is even offering subsidies as high as 90,000 yuan ($13,000) in order to encourage the use of EVs.
Photo: BYD/Weibo
