Revving China's Auto Industry
By Peter Day
Global business correspondent, BBC News

A model poses by a F3DM electric vehicle at 2008 China High-tech Fair (October 2008) in Shenzhen
The BYD F3DM is a petrol-electric hybrid plug-in vehicle
Cars leave me cold, but not the BYD F3DM. I drove it the other day, and it really is remarkable.

In one way, it is a rather ordinary compact saloon car, though it did have exceptional acceleration when I put my foot down zooming round the factory grounds in Shenzhen, the vast new Chinese city just north of Hong Kong.

This is a plug-in electric car, hence the acceleration, but when the electric battery runs out after 80 miles (128km), the petrol engine switches in seamlessly.

"Oh, just like one of those new eco-friendly hybrid cars," you may think.

But the makers argue that hybrids are more gas-guzzler than battery driven, whereas this model tries to be half and half.

And the makers? Well they are called BYD, a Chinese company which has been in existence for a bare 13 years, and which only recently started making any kind of car at all.
Shenzhen skyline
Shenzhen has become a byword for China's manufacturing base

This new dual mode rechargeable car makes its launch appearance in China on 15 December, but BYD's Paul Lin let me have my test drive the other day.

And then when he showed me the company museum, he really set me thinking.

What is a business only 13 years old doing with a museum anyway?

Because the company has such enormous ambitions it wants to tell the world how far it has come and how much further it intends to go.

Rapid growth

Paul Lin showed me how BYD has evolved, starting with rechargeable batteries that soon became standard parts for one third of all the world's mobile phones, following the research speciality of the founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu.

And the modest battery making company grew and grew.

Wang Chuanfu soon saw that battery powered cars might be the future.


The size and scale of what BYD has already achieved is breathtaking, but that is nothing compared to its ambition

BYD knew a lot about batteries, and it was not daunted by the complexities of car-making either.

Six years ago, it bought two established Chinese car firms, and now BYD has seven huge plants with 130,000 employees.

The car I drove is made at the new headquarters factory - a giant one in Shenzhen, a city which was just a fishing town 30 years ago, with some 70,000 inhabitants.

Thanks to China's rush to modernise, Shenzhen is now part of the global manufacturing powerhouse in the Pearl River Delta, with an estimated population of 14m.

Wheel of modernisation

BYD's vast new factory did not exist 15 months ago, and they had to level several hills and fill in several lakes to create the site.

The workers mostly live in vast dormitories close by.

Like most of the Shenzhen workforce, they have migrated into the city from distant country places, moving from poverty in search of the fabled better life, spinning the great wheel of China's modernisation.

The size and scale of what BYD has already achieved is breathtaking, but that is nothing compared to its ambition.

Visitors view an engine developed by BYD Auto at 2008 China High-tech Fair (October 2008) in Shenzhen
The F3DM uses a petrol combustion engine to charge the car's battery
This company has already made public its aim to be the number one car firm in China by the year 2015, and then - deep breath - number one in the whole world in 2025.

Despite my scepticism, Paul Lin had no doubt about this. The current fate of the American car industry suggests there may be room at the top some time before that date.

But to Paul Lin and the company he is part of, this ambition is entirely natural.

Car making is less difficult than high technology, they argue, and many of the techniques they have learned in high tech can now be applied to the automobile.

Remarkable endorsement

I put my foot down and revved almost silently across the factory campus in my (sample) new car, and wondered about the future.

As an exporter, China is going to be badly hit by the global recession, but already the best factories are evolving up the technology chain in much the same way as BYD has transformed itself from a supplier of other people's mobile phone batteries into a car maker with its own name on the front.

Critics say this is a copycat car, but that is how the Japanese auto industry started.

And in September there was a remarkable endorsement of BYD when even as global stock markets were plunging, the canniest American investor of them all, Warren Buffet of Omaha, Nebraska, paid $230m (£155m) for a 10% stake in the Chinese company.

Mr Buffett is a quite notorious investor for the long-term, not the quick buck, so he must recognise something in those initials BYD.

The company says they stand for "Build Your Dream", but they could mean absolutely anything.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 13 December, 2008 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.


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I have known this for a long time.

I'm very excited about this. It is genuine innovation.

There is the Tesla Roadster manufactured by Tesla Motors, a silicon valley company that made a miracle IMO. It is completely electric and no emissions etc. It is said that it has an acceleration time of 3.7 seconds from 0-100 km/h, and has a top speed of 237 km/h. AFAIK it can go 360 km with one charging.

If they produce a family/city version of it then it is certainly going to be great, because its price is 99 000 Euro in Europe, rather expansive.

I was part of a project doing analysis on electric cars 3 year ago.



For different reasons i shall not reveal the name of the company.



The first day they sent me a report stating that their 2 seat electric car can do 100 km/h in less than 3 second. After seeing this I thought this was complete bullshet... after some study, I realised it is not difficult to get electric engines up to the spin. as the work in completely different theories as gasoline engines.



the conclusion of my study resulted following cons for electric engine and no investment was made:



1. The engine was too quite - resulting higher risk for traffic accidents (more likely for electric cars to be invovlved in accidents)



2. Electric engine are too unreliable. high risks for recalls



3. Charge time + lack of universal charge stations resulted very limited operational radios



4. People gets tired of recharging every day



5. Electic engine + batteries are highly dangerous to enviroment. makes recycling a huge cost concern in the long run for the company. (pollution you cant bitch about, the it is inccurred during driving, however, people can biatch about your product create alot of industrial garbage that can't be recycled).

however, I am a fan of hybrid - the solution described above is very nice... if they only made more hybrid that doesnt look so Gay!







__________________________________________

No Matter Who Wins, our troops are always in Good Hands!

you da man, oki....hope what's happening to detroit is not affecting you personally....

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you could get the hybrid escalade.. but at that point it's only people fooling themselves just like a fat guy that orders 10 cheeseburgers, 3 large fries with cheese and gravy and a DIET coke

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" I don't care if the cat is black or white, just as long as it gets the mice "

F3DM that is dual mode is quite good, the motor engine is used to power the electric engine when the battery runs out of juice. Just like in the diesel trains ! This cars is also the first plug in Hybrid, so the drivers just need need to plug into a power socket to recharge.

"5. Electic engine + batteries are highly dangerous to enviroment. makes recycling a huge cost concern in the long run for the company. (pollution you cant bitch about, the it is inccurred during driving, however, people can biatch about your product create alot of industrial garbage that can't be recycled). "

Was it a NiCad, lead acid or Lithium Ion battery pack? Also what is in an electric motor that makes for difficult recycling?

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw

Diva... to be honest.. I really dont know... I got the numbers from a team of tech freaks... which I in turn, put it in financial perspective...


__________________________________________
No Matter Who Wins, our troops are always in Good Hands!

BYD

I was inside these cars

Dual mode

The thing about electric cars is that it's only going to be good for the environment and emmissions if you're using a clean power supply in the first place. What good is a bunch of electric cars if you build a load of fossil fuel power plants to meet the new demand.

Like BYD one charge brings you to 100KM, that's enough for most working people home -- office

"Diva... to be honest.. I really dont know... I got the numbers from a team of tech freaks... which I in turn, put it in financial perspective... "

Thanks mate, I just recall seeing something on Discovery a while back talking about batteries and it mentioned the Lithium Ion were much easier to recycle due to the absence of heavy metals in them.

If you don't mind and can recall, on a scale of 1 of 10 what did the business case look like (1 being crap and 10 being awesome)?

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw

Well, it was pretty bad... the expected return was very low (if any)... however, don't forget this was a couple years ago, alot have happened since then (in terms of politics, technology, and economically)

Also, a lot of times being pioneer of a product is not the best apporach... sometimes from marketing perspective it is sometimes better to be the group that enter the market just before the market starts to mature (but not being the first)...

I personally think right now is the time to push for electic (hybrid) cars... during the crisis...














__________________________________________
No Matter Who Wins, our troops are always in Good Hands!

With oil being as cheap as it is right now ...


Mobile airpower

"The enemy dies relaxed," observed a Lockheed Martin manager.

The oil price will go up again and I do not think a lot of people would like to risk paying a high price for oil again unless they are rich.

"Also, a lot of times being pioneer of a product is not the best apporach... sometimes from marketing perspective it is sometimes better to be the group that enter the market just before the market starts to mature (but not being the first)..."

Being a leader in anything is hard. You really want to be the guy that comes in 6 - 12 months prior to the mass adoption growth phase (assuming an S curve in technology adoption).

"I personally think right now is the time to push for electic (hybrid) cars... during the crisis..."

Now is a good time for the marketing of future consumer devices, but for (and I am guessing here) the next 9 - 12 months consumers will be tight with their money. Which of course means now is the time to generate demand for a product you can't deliver !

I don't think gasoline powered hybrids have a chance in anything beyond 5 years.

Out of curiosity, have you ever been called upon to look at the business case for distributed energy generation with fuel cells?

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw

"Out of curiosity, have you ever been called upon to look at the business case for distributed energy generation with fuel cells?"

Hmm.. no .. TBH, I dont have the slightest idea what "Distributed energy generation with fuel cells means!" hahha


__________________________________________
No Matter Who Wins, our troops are always in Good Hands!

"Hmm.. no .. TBH, I dont have the slightest idea what "Distributed energy generation with fuel cells means!" hahha"

Imagine every dwelling in area with a small fuel cell generating electricity back on to a power grid, that is a DES (distributed energy system). It is an interesting concept that I (and many others) have been contemplating for some time.

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw