Chinese car factory will consume water and energy enough for a small city

There are staggering numbers in the environmental permit issued by the Csongrád County Government Office in February this year for the BYD plant being built in Szeged. According to the document, the Chinese car factory will use as much water as a small town of 50,000 people, and will consume even more electricity and natural gas.

The Hungarian government is providing significant funding for the new BYD factory project on the outskirts of Szeged, surrounded by farmland. The factory is expected to start production this year, with land expropriation already underway.

Although construction has been underway for months, the government office of Csongrád-Csanád County only issued the environmental permit for the BYD factory on 10 February 2025. The document obtained by Átlátszó contains staggering figures.

“In relation to the plant’s activities, the total daily water demand of the site is 6,995.79 m3/day, of which the social water demand is 1,694.5 m3/day and the total water demand of the technological plant units is 5,301.29 m3/day. The volume of water used, based on a planned operating time of 250 days/year and 365 days/year for the workers’ accommodation and canteen, totals 1,811,381.0 m3/year, of which 486,058.5 m3/year for social water and 1,325,322.5 m3/year for industrial water. The social, industrial and fire fighting water needs of the plant will be supplied from the utility network operated by Szegedi Vízmű Zrt. through three separate connections (V-1, V-2 and V-3), which will be built on the southern boundary of the site.”

– the document states.

Using data from the naitonal statistics bureau KSH, the BYD plant’s water usage would be equal to that of a town of nearly 50,000 people.

In addition to water, the factory will also need electricity: 283.4 million kWh/year according to the environmental permit. This is the equivalent of the energy consumption of a city of nearly 120,000 inhabitants (keep in mind, ony Hungary’s six largest cities have more than 120,000 inhabitants).

The government document also states that the Szeged plant will consume 25.7 million m3 of natural gas per year. This is equivalent to the gas consumption of a small town of 31,000 inhabitants, according to KSH data.

Air conditioned battery storage

BYD’s Szeged plant will consist of 15 buildings, each with different activities. One of the buildings, for example, will be a battery storage facility of 50,000 square meters and a height of 16 meters, according to the environmental permit.

However, they stress that this will not require any additional water: “the battery warehouse will be designed to maintain a constant temperature by air cooling using heat pump technology, which does not require a water supply”. According to the document, “the lithium-ion battery packs will be shipped from China by sea and then by road to the factory’s battery unloading platform ready for use.”

However, testing and disposing of defective batteries will requiere a lot of water: the document describes the process wherein defective batteries are immersed in salt water, thereby producing hazardous waste – exactly how this waste will be disposed of is unclear.

The document only states that the waste will be

„transported and recycled by a duly authorised third party”, but there is no mention of who and where it will be disposed of.

The document states that the plant will generate approximately 7,153 tonnes of hazardous waste every year, on top of 155,000 tonnes of waste that can be recycled without special treatment.

Huge traffic, lots of waste

Transporting the raw materials, finished cars, and the waste will generate a huge amount of extra traffic in the area. The environmental permit states that “The operation of the plant requires the continuous supply of raw materials and the delivery of finished goods. The plant can be accessed from the east via Gate 5 on the eastern bypass from the M43 motorway. The finished goods are transported by lorries westwards on the main road 5 towards the M43 motorway. A preliminary assessment procedure has been carried out for road 502, which concluded that no significant environmental impact is expected from the activity.”

Map showing the location and surrounding area of the BYD plant

However, it is acknowledged that

“the north-eastern side of the Liliom housing project is very close to the track of the 502 main road.

Properties in this area could experience levels approaching the hourly limit during adverse weather conditions. The modelling suggests that the longer-term limits will be safely achievable in both areas”. This means around 175 instances of trucks driving through the area.

This roads are expected to be reileved later, as tere is a planned railway, which could shoulder around half of the logistics. This, if everything goes according to plan, could be operational in 2027.

A massive project

The plant, which will cover 314 hectares (3.14 million sqm), will have a planned production capacity of 300,000 vehicles per year (280,000 electric and 20,000 plug-in hybrid), according to the permit.

What this number of cars means for the European market can be seen in this article on motor1.com. According to this, 12.9 million new cars will be sold in Europe (including the UK) in 2024. Volkswagen leads the list with 3.4 million cars, followed by manufacturers with more than 1 million sales. Ford (426,000), Volvo (369,000), Tesla (327,000) and Nissan (307,000) managed to sell close to the 300,000 a year projected by BYD in Szeged. This means that the Chinese giant’s Hungarian plant is likely to be a significant competitor to European car manufacturers.