Word: auto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...like SAIC and Chery have announced plans to produce electric cars, it is China's battery makers who have taken the first steps. BYD was already a major global battery producer, chiefly for mobile phones, when in 2003 it entered the car business by buying a defunct state-owned auto company. BYD proved a surprisingly quick study at automaking - its F3 sedan is a best seller in China, beating popular foreign brands - and now it has moved into electrics. The company is already selling the F3DM, a $22,000 Volt-style plug-in car with a backup gasoline-powered generator...
...best cars from the 2009 Detroit Auto Show...
...from perfect - a concept car it revealed at the Paris auto show this year had its tires mounted backwards - but it received a boost last fall when American financial wizard Warren Buffett bought 10% of the company for $230 million, a stake that is now worth at least four times as much. "BYD is obviously way ahead of everyone," says Jack Perkowski, a Beijing-based businessman who has worked as an executive in the Chinese auto industry. "It has a core competency in the fundamental technology you need for electrics...
...joint venture began after Lishen started producing electric batteries for Miles Electric Vehicles, a small-scale startup founded by former Ralph Lauren executive and philanthropist Miles Rubin. Coda Automotive, Rubin's next project, takes that relationship a step further. The Coda sedan (the body is made by another Chinese auto company, Hafei Motor) will run for about $45,000 when it goes on sale in California in 2010. Coda expects to sell about 2,700 cars in the first year, with an annual sales target of around 20,000. For Coda's Czinger, the China connection allows him to keep...
...just in the U.S. Lishen told TIME it is in discussions with 20 Chinese electrical-vehicle manufacturers to supply power systems for their cars. And while much of the attention is on how American, Japanese or European customers will respond to electrics, Chinese drivers could push the technology fastest. Auto markets are shrinking or stagnant in most countries, while the Chinese car market is still growing rapidly, even in the midst of a recession. And Chinese customers may prove more receptive to electric vehicles than their international counterparts. For an American driver who has owned a car for years...