Chinese battery maker and car manufacturer Build Your Dreams (BYD) Auto is to display its electric cars at the annual shareholders’ meeting of US conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway as it bids to tap into the North American market.
Invited to attend by US billionaire Warren Buffet who invested in the company last year, BYD is set to demonstrate its F3DM or E6 model. The F3DM is China’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid car that went on sale in December last year, well ahead of competitors such as General Motors and Toyota which plan to launch their plug-in vehicles in 2010.
Wang Chuanfu, the company’s president, believes the market potential for the F3DM may stretch to the US because of the country’s increasing sense of social responsibility and environmental protection. Electrical charging is also less likely to be a problem with many car owners having their own garages.
At the moment BYD is targeting corporate and government buyers because of subsidies for environmentally friendly vehicles for public transport applications such as taxis and the postal service. BYD is also building specialised parking lots with electricity charging ports to make recharging more convenient – the stations will charge the electric car’s batteries to 50 per cent of their capacity in around 10 minutes.
The F3DM is proving a significant success for BYD Auto and is one of the most environmentally friendly vehicles around consuming just 16kWh for every 100 kilometres driven using the electric battery alone.
