Behind the mysterious theft case, how did BYD "tame" its Thai factory? | 36Kr Lite

BYD's Rayong factory in Thailand was once plagued by a series of mysterious "theft cases". However, after an inventory, it was found that the number of steel bolts was complete, and there was even no abnormal consumption of labor protection supplies.

In fact, what was stolen was not valuable items, but the "BYD" Logo (brand symbol) on the plastic labels of barreled water in the workshop water room.

Those barreled waters that were supposed to be placed randomly would always be turned to the same angle. The originally intact BYD letters on the barrels all disappeared, leaving only a carefully cut outline trace made by a knife.

Li Youcai, one of the first employees to join BYD's Rayong project, told 36Kr that it wasn't until he was invited to a gathering among local Thai employees that he found these "stolen" BYD Logos.

"There was a local wearing a T-shirt. It wasn't our work uniform, but there was a BYD Logo on the chest. I got closer and found that it was the plastic piece of the Logo from the barreled water. They carefully glued it onto the clothes with glue," Li Youcai said. Under his inquiry, the locals showed him their "merchandise" with BYD Logos, including hats, shoes, and even on a Fiat car.

For the first time, a Chinese industrial brand has become a "symbol to be worn on the body" overseas.

"They just want others to know that they work at BYD," Li Youcai told 36Kr. "In Rayong, BYD is like a foreign company in China in the 1990s. Everyone recognizes that BYD has good products, stable technology, a good working environment, good treatment, and great growth potential."

The blue work uniforms distributed for free by BYD have also become a "hard currency" in Rayong, Thailand. There are always employees coming to register that their work uniforms are lost and asking for replacements.

Li Youcai told 36Kr that BYD's work uniforms in Rayong are as prestigious as those of Samsung and Hynix in South Korea. "They didn't really lose their work uniforms. Instead, many relatives and friends wanted these BYD clothes, so they gave them away."

This brand, which is known as the "price war initiator" in China, has become the "Porsche" in the hearts of local laborers in Rayong, Thailand. And it has only been two years since BYD built this factory in Rayong, Thailand.

Chinese automobile companies and their core industrial chains have been launching successive attacks on overseas markets in the past few years.

In the past three years, Chinese automobile companies have planned and put into production more than 15 overseas passenger car bases. BYD is obviously one of the most aggressive players. Its overseas sales have increased from 400,000 vehicles in 2024 to 1.05 million vehicles in 2025, and this year it has set a target of up to 1.6 million vehicles.

However, in addition to exports, for large regional markets such as Europe and Southeast Asia, local manufacturing and even the establishment of local industrial chains are more sustainable and secure strategies for going global. The Thai factory was born against this background.

Relying on its geographical location and favorable trade policies, Thailand has long become the world's largest production base for right-hand drive vehicles for Japanese brands, producing 1.3 million vehicles annually. BYD has also emphasized on many occasions that its vision for building a factory in Thailand is not limited to the local market. Instead, it hopes to use Thailand as a base to radiate the ASEAN region and even the global right-hand drive market.

The cultural integration of personnel and labor issues in Southeast Asia have almost been the troubles faced by many Chinese companies going global. Even the Indian factories of Apple and Foxconn once faced shutdowns due to the withdrawal of Chinese engineers.

BYD has managed to make an overseas factory operate normally within just two years, smoothly integrate various cultural ecosystems within the factory, and even make the production efficiency on par with that of domestic factories. This is like Chinese automobile companies have paved a way in this long journey of going global.

According to 36Kr, in the first year of BYD's factory construction in Thailand, its employee turnover rate was lower than the 12% average of the Thai trade union. Now, Chinese companies such as Great Wall and Changan are offering a 50% salary increase to poach Thai engineers trained by BYD.

Back in 2023, facing the dust at the Rayong construction site and the legend of a 50% turnover rate among local Chinese enterprise employees, Li Youcai couldn't imagine how BYD could truly win the hearts of the people in Thailand.

Entering Rayong Province: Two Years of Thorough Preparation

The BYD Rayong project team was established in 2022. Li Youcai told 36Kr that although BYD had previously been involved in the retail and cooperation of commercial vehicles in Thailand, everyone in the project team was not confident about "building a factory in Thailand".

"We Chinese can directly go there to build the factory buildings and install the equipment. We're not worried about that. The first big challenge at that time was how to recruit Thai engineers and make them learn BYD's set of rules."

According to data from the International Labour Organization, the incidence of labor disputes in Southeast Asia is significantly higher than the global average. Even the factories of Apple and Foxconn rely heavily on Chinese engineers to operate.

BYD didn't rush to send people to Thailand. Instead, it first let the team calm down and do desk work in China for a whole year.

"The group prepared a lot of materials, including Thailand's policies, culture, business environment, and factory environment, especially the relevant materials of the Thai factories of Toyota, Sanhua, and Ford," Li Youcai told 36Kr. "Just the study of written materials took nearly three months."

The most important part of the desk work was to write every process and detail in BYD's R & D and production process into an execution manual, shoot it into a video, and make it all bilingual in Chinese and Thai.

The situation of the Thai automobile industry is a bit special. It has been operating under the system of Japanese brands for a long time, training hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, but there are very few engineers who truly hold core technologies. As for talents in new energy vehicle supporting fields such as batteries, there is a serious shortage.

For Chinese new energy automobile companies, it's not an easy road to turn the local "ability to assemble" into "understanding the system, standards, and being able to run through the process documents".

"We've heard many lessons from predecessors. In some companies, as soon as the Chinese engineers left, the local employees couldn't understand the operation manual."

Li Youcai told 36Kr that one of the principles the team adhered to at that time was that even if they couldn't contact Chinese employees in the future, Thai colleagues could independently solve sudden problems on the production line with these texts and videos. "We must consider all details. Even problems that have never been exposed in Chinese factories must be written down and recorded on camera item by item."

At the end of the desk preparation and factory building construction, BYD officially started the local recruitment work. "Financial strength" was BYD's first card.

The monthly salary of general electronic and mechanical operators in Rayong Province is about 2,000 yuan; in the capital Bangkok, the monthly salary for the same type of positions usually reaches 3,000 yuan.

Multiple insiders told 36Kr that BYD's salary level is 30% higher than that in Bangkok. The monthly salary of operators generally reaches 4,000 yuan, and some core technical workers can reach 6,000 yuan. There is a relative shortage of engineer talents, so BYD can only poach from established companies. "It's common to offer a 30 - 50% salary increase to recruit people."

In addition, the salary structure of employees at the Rayong base is also different from that in China.

In addition to the basic salary, BYD also sets up monthly performance bonuses, quarterly bonuses, and annual bonuses; the working hours strictly comply with the labor law, and overtime pay is increased. It's double pay on ordinary weekends and triple pay on holidays; there are 15 days of annual leave, which can be cashed if not taken; some positions on the production line even enjoy separate allowances.

The employees have been recruited, but the bigger challenge has just begun. The second hurdle in front of BYD is how to retain these Thai employees and reduce the high turnover rate.

Li Youcai told 36Kr that more than 90% of the employees are production line technicians. "Chinese people simply can't figure out what the locals are thinking. The recruitment agency was very straightforward: these technicians are very difficult to manage. Some people advance their salaries after working for a month and then just run away. This is not a problem unique to BYD. Many local Thai factories also have the same headache."

"Our idea is to understand the people first," Li Youcai said. He and his team members visited the living environment of grass - roots laborers in Rayong Province and found that "the poorer ones live in wooden houses, similar to those in China in the 1980s. It leaks occasionally when it rains heavily. There is no air - conditioning, and the whole family only has one electric fan. This is the real situation of most grass - roots operator families."

As early as 2010, Wang Chuanfu once said bluntly about BYD's management concept: "If you're an entrepreneur, you should think about your employees like a loving father or mother thinks about their children. Only when you take good care of them will they take good care of your company and then your profits."

Now, the Rayong base has put this simple truth into practice.

"The Chinese colleagues who went there in the early days endured a lot of hardships to create a good environment for the Thai colleagues," Li Youcai told 36Kr. "In the early stage of the base construction, the manpower was very tight. Trivial matters such as kitchen utensils and raw materials for the canteen, work uniforms and labor protection supplies, and electrical appliances and bedding in the employee dormitory building were all on the shoulders of his team."

"There were only a few people in the team, running back and forth between Rayong, Chonburi, and Bangkok for procurement. I even lived in a rough - finished dormitory building for half a month. You have to experience it yourself to know where you can make improvements." In Li Youcai's memory, the members of the Rayong project team all adhered to such a work principle.

The general manager of the BYD Rayong base used to hold an important management position at a BYD base in China. Multiple people close to the Rayong base told 36Kr that after he arrived at the Rayong factory area, in addition to the construction progress, he paid the most attention to issues related to production safety and living comfort that are directly related to employees.

"He emphasized in every weekly meeting that whatever the Chinese base can achieve, the Rayong base must also achieve. We can't lower the standards just because the conditions are difficult."

"He almost walked every corner of the factory area on foot. He gave very detailed and practical guidance on which corner of the workshop needed to install a fan and which section of the road was too long and needed a fixed shuttle bus."

It took BYD's Rayong base two whole years from initially writing the desk plan to finally implementing these facilities and services one by one. Why did they go to such great lengths?

Chinese companies are new to Thailand and have no trust endorsement. With the impression of hard - working and over - working Chinese employees in the front and the BYD Rayong factory that was built in 16 months in the back, the Thai people who believe that "excessive hardship doesn't bring merit" were resistant from the beginning.

The early practices of Chinese automobile companies in Thailand were very "Chinese - style": I've paid enough, so you should be willing to work overtime, right? The fact is that employees not only don't want to work overtime, but the turnover rate is as high as 30% - 50%, far exceeding the local average.

To break the deadlock, it's necessary to prove desperately that it's not a sweatshop.

When BYD's mattresses are softer than Toyota's, the food is more delicious than that in Thai electronics factories, and the shuttle bus routes are more reasonable than Ford's, BYD is trying to tell the Thai people with actions: I invite you here not to tie you to the assembly line. I care about every day you work here and treat you as a real person, not just a worker.

However, all this is just a prelude. The success or failure of a factory depends on the most core indicator: production capacity. The real tough battle officially begins when the production line starts.

Production: Chinese Speed Meets "Easy - going" Thai Workers

In the early stage, BYD implemented a one - to - one teaching model of master - apprentice in Rayong. "A large number of engineers and production foremen were called from China. Most of these positions could speak English. For those who couldn't, two translators were assigned, and translation machines and software were also prepared. The teaching went relatively smoothly, but frictions between different cultures were inevitable."

Li Youcai recalled to 36Kr, "One day, when it was almost time to get off work, a Thai employee came to me and said that a Chinese engineer had called him stupid, and he was very angry and even wanted to quit." His immediate action was to call the factory director and ask the Chinese engineer who was teaching to come to the scene. "We compared each sentence to see which one made the Thai employee feel offended. It turned out that the Chinese engineer just spoke in a hurry and loudly."

"Such things happened frequently in the early stage," Li Youcai added.

The catchphrase of Thai laborers is always "ใจเย็นๆ" (Take it easy, don't be in a hurry). They believe that making money is for life, not living just to make money. As soon as it's time to get off work, they must leave: to go home, participate in temple activities, or have gatherings with friends, each with their own arrangements. They value the working atmosphere and the dignity among colleagues: methods can be taught, mistakes can be pointed out, but they can't be embarrassed in public.

Since then, BYD has launched a series of measures: setting up weekly symposiums, complaint mailboxes, and complaint QR codes, and even the factory director's office is always open. "As long as you feel uncomfortable, you can go to the factory director immediately."

Leaders at all levels emphasize every day that they must respect Thai colleagues, insist on patient teaching, give more encouragement, and prohibit direct criticism and scolding; when Thai employees file complaints, the matter must be resolved on the same day. If it can't be resolved immediately, a time for a reply must be agreed upon; at the factory level, a happy factory plan is implemented, linking employee satisfaction with the factory's monthly performance bonus, etc.

In Thailand, dignity is an invisible red line. The social consensus is that no matter how powerful one is, they shouldn't use their power to trample on a person's dignity.

And BYD is a completely unfamiliar Chinese - funded factory. The nerves of local workers are almost as tense as a string about to break: a slightly cold look or a slightly high tone from Chinese employees may be regarded as an offense.

Once the conflict is handled inappropriately, BYD will face not only employee turnover but also an indelible "bad employer" label, which will make it extremely difficult for its local expansion plan.

"The general manager even gave an order at that time that if there is a conflict between Chinese employees and Thai employees, Chinese employees should give in first," Li Youcai told 36Kr. "Sometimes I even wonder if the leaders are being too soft. Why are they so nice to foreigners? We can't even say a word."

It wasn't until the base counted the employee turnover rate and he saw the figure below 10% that Li Youcai suddenly understood the rationality behind those "unreasonable" actions.

However, a new problem soon emerged: the overseas assignment period of Chinese employees is limited, and the policy requirements for the proportion of Thai employees are increasing. The Thai factory has to learn to stand on its own feet as soon as possible.

Withdrawal of Chinese Employees: How Can Thai People Take on the Leading Role?

There is an obvious divide between Chinese and Thai workplace cultures. In China, as long as someone is a leader, they can manage you. But in Thailand, many people only recognize their direct supervisor. They don't buy into instructions from higher - level leaders. China's "lecture - style management" is completely out of place in Thailand. The top - down, one - way indoctrination method is not accepted by the Thai people at all.

At the end of 2024, the Rayong base started a "seed talent program".

"Select relatively excellent employees from operation team leaders and engineers who recognize BYD's culture and are yearning for China, send them to China for training, and let them take important management positions after they return to Thailand," Li Youcai told 36Kr. The first batch of Thai employees sent to China for training numbered more than a hundred.