GENEVA – As other Chinese automakers bypass the auto show here, BYD Auto and the Chinese company’s Swiss importer, Martin Parsons, promised they “will be in Geneva every year.”
There is some reason to believe that the company has the legs to keep the promise. Warren Buffet invested $250 million in BYD in 2008, mainly because of its strength in electric-vehicle battery technology. Last year, BYD sold 450,000 gasoline-engine cars in China, more than doubling its 2008 sales and becoming the sixth biggest Chinese automaker.
This week, BYD signed a memorandum of understanding with Daimler to build electric cars together in China. Henry Li, BYD’s international sales manager, said the company will develop an electric car that will be positioned above the e6, the four-door electric passenger car that BYD displayed at the Detroit auto show in January. Another Chinese automaker, Brilliance, is a partner of BMW in China.
According to Mr. Li, BYD will sell its e6 and F3DM plug-in hybrid next year in Europe. The e6 is to go on sale in China later this year, he said, and will be introduced in the United States and Europe in 2011. He didn’t give dates nor anticipated sales volumes. Only about 100 F3DMs have been sold in China since going on sale a year ago, and e6 sales will also start slowly, he said, with Chinese customers mainly being government and taxi fleets.
Mr. Parsons said there are Swiss buyers willing to pay extra to have an electric car like the e6. He said he is watching Peugeot’s offer in France to lease a small electric car based on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV for 500 euros ($673) a month, and “if that works, we will follow it.”
