2017 Acura NSX: Supercar slowest in the world? - Ignition Ep 143.
BYD e6 electric cars provided 50 operators to taxi in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, as part of a trial run A HUI China Daily.
BEIJING - BYD's worst nightmare came true last year.
BYD, which stands for Build Your Dream, is known as the pioneer of electric vehicles in China The company had high expectations for the F3DM and had hoped to sell up to 1,000 units.
Even combined with incentives supported by the central government, the company sold less than 500 electric cars in 2010. The F3DM can switch between electric and hybrid electric modes, and can be recharged at home using a 220v outlet.
Sales figures are certainly far from impressive, especially compared to its Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf counterparts, both mass produced electric cars in the world, has sold 493 units and 573 units respectively in North America April alone.
BYD began as a cell phone battery manufacturer in 1995 and became the second largest supplier in the world in 2003. In the same year, BYD has gained national car company, and slightly in the first three automobile brands of raw in China in five years.
BYD said it is a company with several IT companies, traditional cars and electric cars The company says with pride that one in three mobile phone batteries in the world is made by BYD.
But in 2008, he broke into the area of electronic vehicle this year, while the world has just begun to feel the chill of the financial crisis, Warren Buffett has invested 230 million 158 million for the purchase 10 percent of company shares, making overnight superstar since then the development of electric vehicles company attracted automotive experts of attention worldwide.
BYD claims that the small sales figures are the result of limited production capacity The company produced only 50 units of the e6, and sent all to a taxi company in Shenzhen to driver operation This model is not available to consumers production capacity of F3DM, which is priced at 168,000 yuan 25838, is only 400 a year.
Price may be another reason why consumers aren t charged to buy the model F3DM popular conventional models BYD are priced between 50,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan.
Song Jian, executive vice president of Tsinghua Automotive Engineering Institute, said that the fight BYD is a reflection of the entire electric vehicle industry in China Although automakers are eager to advance electric vehicles, lack of infrastructure and confidence in public safety and maintaining performance back consumers.
Without a real market, car manufacturers do not dare to bet all their resources on the development of electric vehicles, which further limits the improvement of the quality This form just a vicious cycle in the industry, said Song.
If an electric car is expensive, unreliable and not sure who will buy it.
The central government took six cities - Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Hefei, Changchun and Beijing - as pilot cities to promote electric cars These cities are laying aggressively on infrastructure, including charging stations.
Shenzhen in Guangdong province in southern China, where the headquarters of BYD is located four charging stations have been built and 180 charging pillars were installed by the end of November 2010 But it wasn t the point failover for many consumers.
BYD is proud of the progress it has made in the development of electric vehicles Zhibing Xia, general manager of BYD, said he is very pleased that the battery in the car is strong enough to hold the pilot program in Shenzhen .
BYD is the world's first to launch a pilot operation of large scale electric car and, on average, a car drives 90000 km, the equivalent of running petrol car for 6 years, said Xia, adding BYD will make some adjustments in the pilot program based on the drivers' comments.
BYD has also formed a joint venture with Mercedes-Benz to develop electric cars The new company has completed the design of its first electric car and is ready to test it.
I think it's the win-win cooperation, since both parties have their forces BYD's battery technology, and Mercedes-Benz certainly all around knowledge about cars, said Xia.
BYD has already adopted battery technology lithium-ion battery that comes from the United States, which is the technology of the most promising battery for electric vehicles, as said Song.
The battery is the most essential element of an electric vehicle, but the efficiency of the battery BYD is at least 20 percent lower than in developed countries, he added.
Wang Jianjun, deputy general manager of BYD, said the company will stick to this battery technology because it is the best way to market electric vehicles.
We will develop technologies in two niche markets A for individuals in some cities, one for transport, we will gradually deploy the pilot operation of city buses in big cities, he said.
Despite the cool reception from the market, Wang Chuanfu, Chairman and President of BYD, said the development of the electric car is needed to catch up with auto giants abroad.
Honestly speaking, Chinese cars are not able to compete in the classic car area, if only by lower price We need to develop electric vehicles.
Although labeled as the pioneer of the electric car, the current revenue of BYD relies on conventional cars Li Yunfei, deputy general manager of BYD Co Ltd, admits that most of BYD electric vehicles are still being tested.
From 2005 to 2010, sales of classic cars BYD maintained a YoY growth rate of over 100 percent, once considered the BYD miracle in the automotive industry.
Among its models, BYD F3 is the best seller of small models of Chinese cars is known for its fashionable design and low price, which starts at 56,000 yuan.
The glory comes with criticism and suspicion, however.
For years, BYD has been criticized for its infringement of copyright on the design of the car and its battery technology A joke well known among Chinese drivers is that if you replace the logo of a BYD F3 with one of a Toyota Corolla, nobody can tell them apart from a distance.
At the same time, BYD is facing a problem every Chinese car brand is worried win the market with a low price at the beginning, he found his cars were stereotyped - cheap and shoddy to change his image, BYD introduced S6 the first half SUV in high-end, at the Shanghai auto show last month.
The company was also affected by its adaptation of the concession policy Its turnover in 2010 fell 34 percent to 2 52 billion yuan, a decrease of 3 79 billion yuan in 2009 BYD has adjusted his goal sales of original 800,000 units to 600,000 units but sold only 520,000.
Since 2008, the company has tried to push its product in the US He finally made progress when Los Angeles authorities agreed to test the e6 last year.
He had originally planned to present e6 in the US at the end of last year, but later postponed the entry into the mass market of the United States until the first quarter of 2012.
Slow start for sales of BYD electric cars, start, electric, sales.