The apparent similarities between the BYD Ti7 and the Land Rover Defender have prompted a legal battle. On Wednesday, there’ll be a preliminary hearing at a court in The Hague, the Netherlands, with it emerging in The Times that BYD’s Dutch offices in Schiedam and Hoofddorp were raided by court-ordered bailiffs back in August. 

 

The aim was to acquire files before BYD was able to destroy them. It claims that BYD stripped down a Defender to reverse-engineer elements of its technology in creating the Ti7.