ChinaÂ’s BYD takes aim at U.S. EV market
DETROIT, MICHIGAN - China's Build Your Dreams Auto took aim at the U.S. market with the unveiling of a four-door electric car at the Detroit auto show.
BYD aims to have the e6 ready for sale in North America by the end of 2010, which would make it the first Chinese automaker to enter the highly competitive market.
"As a major developer and manufacturer of electric vehicles, BYD is devoted to creating safe, efficient and affordable electric vehicles," said Henry Li, general manager of BYD Auto Trade Export.
The full-sized, four-door electric vehicle offers a maximum range of 205 miles, a maximum speed of 87 miles per hour, an acceleration from zero to 60 of less than 14 seconds and operates at a third of the cost of a comparable gasoline vehicle, Li said.
It would be powered with a home charging station and BYD also hopes to establish a network of charging poles at offices, stores and standalone stations.
BYD is China's fourth largest automaker and sold 450,000 vehicles there in 2009, a 180 percent increase from a year earlier.
It aims to sell 800,000 vehicles in China this year and to become the nation's largest automaker in 2015.
BYD hopes to eventually establish research and development and manufacturing facilities in the United States, Li said at a press conference.
The automaker is still working on establishing a distribution network in the United States.
Related News
Africa's Electricity Unlikely To Go Green This Decade
LONDON - New research today from the University of Oxford predicts that total electricity generation across the African continent will double by 2030, with fossil fuels continuing to dominate the energy mix posing potential risk to global climate change commitments.
The study, published in Nature Energy, uses a state-of-the art machine-learning technique to analyse the pipeline of more than 2,500 currently-planned power plants and their chances of being successfully commissioned. It shows the share of non-hydro renewables in African electricity generation is likely to remain below 10% in 2030, although this varies by region.
'Africa's electricity demand is set to increase significantly…
