COLOMBO — 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.
