BYD ELECTRIC CARS
BEIJING Unlike the usual pattern of technological advance, the Chinese car company BYD to build your dreams has led the way in electric vehicles, but now faces growing competition from Western manufacturers.
BYD has nothing like the overall profile of Tesla, but sold its first hybrid in 2008, well before the US firm began production.
The same year, the American billionaire Warren Buffett acquired a 10 percent in the company's deliveries of its first all-electric car, the e6, started in 2011, a year before the first sales of the model Tesla S.
While Tesla founder Elon Musk could be compared to a sprinter, the president of BYD Wang Chuanfu is more of a marathon runner, senior vice president of the Stella Li company told Bloomberg News earlier this month , slowly but surely built its brand recognition and sales volume.
In 2015, BYD sold about 58,000 electric and hybrid vehicles, doubling year by year, according to its annual report, that the difference between categories It hopes to sell three times this year.
In comparison, 50.580 Tesla electric cars sold globally by 2015.
BYD, which has its origins as a battery manufacturer, is seeking to diversify its offerings across price ranges, in partnership with the German manufacturer Daimler to create Denza, a premium brand that seeks to compete for good clients Tesla haves.
At the other end of the range, it was the first company worldwide to create mass-produced, fully electric buses, and sold them in the United States, Britain, India and Brazil, among other.
Sales of Chinese energy vehicles a category that combines both all-electric and hybrid quadrupled last year on the back of government subsidies, but accounted for less than one percent of the largest car market in the world.
But BYD believes that these incentives will become increasingly necessary as the sector is more driven by the fundamentals of the industry that government policies, he said in his annual report, which predicts an acceleration phase in full force.
Although more than 80 percent of the production of BYD remains conventional gasoline models, and last week, he unveiled a new SUV run gasoline in style Yuan, called to evoke the grandeur of the Mongol dynasty that ruled China for nearly a century.
Competition is becoming fiercer than other automakers such as Ford, BMW and Renault entering the field of electric cars.
It doesn t matter that you were the pioneer, said Dr. Namrita Chow, analyst at industry data firm IHS Automotive To stay on top of your game and stay in the spotlight in China, you must have a constant stream of new technically advanced products reach the market AFP.
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