This morning, on all the newspapers in Italy, there is a fake page, with the slightly yellowed solemnity of the old headlines: «Gazzetta dell’Auto», sensational edition, September 2026. Headline in poster-sized characters: «The future of mobility does not wait for decrees. BYD neither».
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Below, the offer: up to 11,600 euros of incentives on the Super Hybrid range. And a red stamp, like a ministerial protocol, with the cross already marked: «Decree BYD Approved».
It is an advertising gimmick that makes you smile and, at the same time, shiver a little. In a country where public incentives for low-emission cars always arrive late, run out in a click day, require ISEE, scrapping of a precise Euro, residence and patience like a monk, a company decides not to wait any longer for Rome or Brussels. It signs the decree itself. It approves it itself. And invites customers to do the same.
The strategy
On one side the State that discusses, postpones, confuses the European level with the national one, shifts funds from family demand to the industrial supply chain. On the other the market that, tired of waiting, invents its own Official Gazette. The future, as we know, does not wait. But Italians, to change cars, always wait for the discount. Better if it looks like a provision.
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The BYD Super Hybrid in question promises over 1,300 kilometers of range and seventy-one kilometers per liter. Fairy tale numbers, as car manufacturers’ numbers have always been, since advertising exists. The image — generated or retouched with artificial intelligence, they say in small print — shows the old gas pumps alongside the new column, and a hand inserting the plug. The handover, clear, aesthetic, definitive.
“In the confusion of incentives… BYD chooses to invest concretely. The change has already begun. We move forward.”
Forward, of course. Towards which political and support destination for the car the «Gazzetta dell’Auto» does not say. But the decree, the private one, is already approved. And in Italy, you know, a decree is worth more than a thousand promises. Even when signed by a company.
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