BYD and Haier collaboration

BYD and Haier used Milan Design Week this week to pitch the electric car as part of the home, not just a way to get around. (en.ilsole24ore.com) The joint project, called “Inside the Experience,” opened at Haier Hub on Via Bergognone 26 in Milan during Design Week’s April 20-26 run. Haier’s event page describes it as an immersive route across design, light, entertainment and smart technology. (milandesignweek.org, haier-europe.com) BYD built its part of the installation around the Dolphin Surf, a compact battery-electric model it launched in Europe last year, and around Vehicle-to-Load, or V2L, which lets the car’s battery power external devices. Il Sole 24 Ore said the display shifted BYD’s Design Week focus toward that energy-sharing function. (byd.com, en.ilsole24ore.com) That framing puts an appliance company and a carmaker in the same room for a reason. Haier’s organizers describe the space as a connected domestic environment, while BYD presented the vehicle as a mobile power source that can plug into that wider system. (fuorisalone.it, morningitaly.com) The pitch also lands at a moment when car brands are trying to sell electric vehicles as consumer technology, not only transport hardware. BYD said the Dolphin Surf was its eighth pure-electric car launched in Europe in less than three years, a sign of how fast it is expanding its lineup on the continent. (byd.com) Design Week gave both brands a stage outside their usual categories. Domus listed “Inside the Experience” among the installations to see in Milan, and Forbes included it in a roundup of notable brand exhibitions at the 2026 event. (domusweb.it, forbes.com) BYD tied the display to its Blade Battery platform, which the company says uses lithium iron phosphate chemistry and underpins both its electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. In Milan, that battery was presented less as an engineering component than as the power source for a broader household-and-mobility ecosystem. (byd.com, mediakey.it) The result was a showroom argument as much as a design installation: the kitchen, the living space and the parked car are being marketed as one connected system. Milan was the backdrop, but the target was the next customer deciding whether an electric vehicle belongs in daily life beyond the road. (en.ilsole24ore.com, haier-europe.com)