While Tesla has emphasized the sedan segment of the EV passenger car market with its Model 3, Chinese battery and vehicle maker BYD is racking up huge sales in the China market with its new crossover vehicle, the BYD Yuan EV.
A stylish small crossover vehicle, the Yuan EV had 6,428 deliveries in April, making it number one in EV vehicles sold in China.
The company also had strong sales for its BYD e5, which ranked fourth with 4,602 units, and the BYD PHEV Tang, which was seventh with 3,833 moved.
Tesla’s lone vehicle on the list, the Model 3, just missed the top ten, with an estimated 3,000 units, which would place it in eleventh place.
Making a strong run at BYD’s first place spot is fellow Chinese carmaker Geely, which is headquartered in the city of Hangzhou. The Geely Emgrand EV was in the second spot 5,225 units sold in April.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
While Tesla focuses on passenger cars, Chinese battery and vehicle maker BYD continues to expand its presence in the United States market through its buses and specialty vehicles.
The company has delivered its first BYD 8R Class 8 Automated Side Loader (ASL) all-electric collection truck to Waste Resources to serve its customers in the City of Carson, California.
The first all-electric refuse truck in residential collection operation in Southern California, it features BYD’s propriety electric-propulsion system designed specifically for refuse collection.
The refuse truck’s cab, chassis, and propulsion system were manufactured by BYD, with an ASL body made by Amrep, a leading manufacturer of waste handling equipment in North America.
Trash hauler Waste Resources currently runs 13 refuse trucks in the city of Carson, and if BYD’s refuse truck meets its service and environmental objectives, the company hopes to convert its entire fleet to BYD all-electric trucks.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
If there ever were two companies on a collision course for investors dollars it’s Tesla and China’s BYD (Build Your Dreams), a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles.
Both companies have staked their claim as the leaders in the electrification of everything from cars to forklifts, and both companies have intrigued investors looking for explosive growth on the manufacturing side of investing.
Unfortunately, for Tesla, which lost $702 million in its first quarter and is already looking towards another capital raise in the $2.5 billion range to keep the battery-powered lights on, its overseas competitor is making money.
Lots of money.
BYD has announced that its first quarter profit skyrocketed 632 percent to 749.73 million yuan (US$111.4 million).
In the race to become number one in electric cars, BYD’s already firmly in the lead.
While US investors may pay more attention to Tesla’s US sale figures (increasingly nervously), BYD is number one in the biggest electric vehicle market in the world, China.
“New energy vehicles are expected to continue to sell well in the second quarter, and new energy vehicle sales and revenues continue to maintain strong growth,” noted BYD in its stock exchange filing.
BYD is looking even further down the road, and just signed an agreement with the city government of Changzhou city government for its fourth car factory, which will produce some 400,000 electric cars annually.
Not Just Cars, Buses
While you don’t see any BYD cars on US highways, you do see an increasing number of BYD pure electric buses. The company has made huge headway since it opened an assembly plant in Lancaster, California in 2013, and recently produced its 300th bus.
Worldwide, BYD dominates the market and has produced over 50,000 pure electric buses in just nine years.
As for the battle of the lithium-ion battery, Tesla’s Gigafactories are going head-to-head with BYD’s factories for the production crown, and for now BYD has the world’s largest.
Located in the western province of Qinghai, BYD’s 24GWh power battery factory is aiming to increase total production capacity to 60GWh by 2020. And it has the advantage that Qinghai province is a major source of lithium.
The Qinghai plant is BYD’s third battery factory in China after Shenzhen and Huizhou, and the company is constructing a fourth plant in Chongqing, which will have an annual capacity of 20 GWh.
“Electrification is a done deal as several countries have announced a deadline for the sale of internal combustion engine cars to end. Electric vehicles are on the cusp of another boom,” said BYD President and Chairman Wang Chuanfu, at the time of the Qinghai plant’s opening.
The question is whether BYD’s race with Tesla is a “done deal” as well.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway and BYD, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
BYD (Build Your Dreams), a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles, has debuted a three-section, 27-meter (89-feet) pure electric bus.
The double articulation bus is capable of transporting 250 people at a top-speed of 70 kilometers per hour (43 mph).
“Today, BYD once again uses its core technology, reliable products and innovative solutions to solve the two great urban ills of congestion and pollution,” Stella Li, Senior Vice President of BYD said. “The K12A will bring zero emissions to BRT systems, allowing passengers to enjoy quiet, pollution-free travel, while at the same time saving significant maintenance costs for operators.”
The bus can optimize it efficiency by switching between 2-wheel-drive and 4-wheel-drive.
The K12A is designed for lower-speed, high capacity operations, including airport shuttles and university campus routes where quick loading and high seating capacity are the most important factors.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
BYD (Build Your Dreams), a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles, and the Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) celebrated two milestones: BYD’s 300th battery-electric bus built in Lancaster, California; and AVTA’s 1,000,000th electric service mile running BYD buses.
The AVTA serves the cities of Palmdale, Lancaster and Northern Los Angeles County, California.
Speakers included Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris, Palmdale Mayor Steven D. Hofbauer, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, Deputy Consul General, Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles, Shi Yuanqiang , and SMART Union Rep Willy Solorzano.
Two messages ran throughout the program: electric buses are good for the environment; and building them locally is great for our communities.
“We are very proud of this 300th American bus milestone. We are passionate about our mission to create a cleaner environment here in North America and across the globe,” said Stella Li, BYD President.
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris added, “BYD has continuously shown its dedication to our community and region at-large, since establishing its North American manufacturing facilities here in Lancaster,” Parris said. “Along the way, BYD has established itself as the gold standard in the battery electric bus transportation industry. In fact, our local Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) will very soon have a 100% all-electric bus fleet.”
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
BYD (Build Your Dreams), a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles, has delivered twenty of its pure electric buses to the city of Guayaquil.
The buses will be operated by private bus operator Saucinc.
The port city, which is known as “the Gateway to the Galapagos,” is swapping its entire fleet of diesel transit buses for pure-electric buses.
The move comes after a five month pilot program proved the viability of the buses. The test bus ran an average of 250 kilometers per day.
BYD’s K9 buses feature air conditioning and Wi-Fi, and will have a dramatic impact on air pollution and fuel costs.
The buses are projected to reduce 12.8 tons of CO2 and 2.9 million gallons of diesel annually.
In addition to the buses, the city already has a fleet of BYD ev taxis in service.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
China’s BYD, a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles, has proposed building its SkyRail monorail to ease congestion in one of Los Angeles’s busiest and most congested freeway corridors.
Is this the one proposal that could save Los Angeles billions in construction costs and shave decades off the construction timeline? It just may be.
It’s not just speculation. The idea is already under consideration. BYD’s SkyRail proposal is one of LA Metro’s four new refined concepts for the Sepulveda Transit Corridor.
The goal is to create a high-capacity transit line between the San Fernando Valley and the Westside through the Sepulveda Pass that would move some 100,000 people a day off the I-405 Freeway, which is already ranked as one of the most traveled urban highways in the nation.
According to LA Metro, over 400,000 people currently travel through this area every day to commute to work, school, and other destinations along the freeway and beyond.
LA Metro’s four concepts include three standard rail projects, similar to its current Red Line subway, and would either be underground or a combination of underground and above ground, and BYD’s SkyRail Monorail.
The Sepulveda Transit Corridor project would link San Fernando Valley and LAX, including connections to existing and planned Metro bus and rail lines, including the Orange, Purple, and Expo Lines, and is part of the Measure M expenditure plan, with approximately $5.7 billion for new transit service to connect the San Fernando Valley and the Westside, which is scheduled to open by 2035.
Passed in November 2016, Measure M is a voter approved countywide half-cent sales tax increase, which funds a $120 billion mass transit expansion plan.
Approximately $3.8 billion is already allocated to extend that service from the Westside to LAX with a 2057 opening date.
The Elephant in the Room
With public transit, the two biggest factors are always cost and time of construction. Certainly the biggest factor in LA’s case is cost. The standard heavy rail projects would cost tens of billions.
For example, LA’s currently under construction 9-mile Purple extension of the underground rail system that runs from the current Wilshire/Western station is budgeted at $8.2 billion and will take to decades to build.
The project broke ground in November 2014 and is not scheduled to be fully completed until 2035.
However, unlike a subway, BYD is proposing to build its SKY Rail monorail, which would run in a corridor down the middle of the I-405 freeway, saving billions in tunneling costs and environmental concerns.
SkyRail would be a fully integrated, driverless, state-of-the-art straddle type monorail that is far advanced from the monorails people are familiar with at theme parks such as Disney World and Disneyland.
Most importantly, BYD notes that its SkyRail is only one fifth the cost of a subway, and using BYD’s prefabricated track beams can in some cases mean a construction schedule as short as 2 years. That’s not to say LA’s system would be built that fast, but it certainly wouldn’t take decades.
As a public transit alternative to subways, BYD’s SkyRail delivers numerous benefits, including: capital expenditure 80% lower than subways, a construction period two-thirds shorter than subways, excellent topographic adaptability due to higher climbing ability and smaller turning radius, reduced noise to allow travel through architectural complexes, visual integration into the cityscape thanks to transparent bridges and independent right of way, flexible management to allow for capacity between 10,000 to 30,000 passengers an hour (each way) and a high speed of up to 80km/h.
The company notes that SkyRail is an effective complement to large cities’ subway networks, and BYD already has construction contracts in China for Shenzhen, Shantou, Xi’an, Bengbu, Guang’an, Jilin, Tianjin, and others.
Not Just a Concept
BYD put its first SkyRail in service in 2016 with a 5.4-kilometer trial line that connects BYD’s headquarters in Shenzhen with a nearby high-speed railway station.
BYD has landed contracts to build SkyRails outside of China, as well.
BYD is set to construct its first Latin American monorail in the Brazilian city of Salvador. Construction will commence in 2019 with the goal of being operational by 2021.
Like the LA proposal, the system will integrate with other mass transit. Salvador’s SkyRail will move a projected 15,000 passengers a day, connecting them to the public metro network that currently serves over 2.9 million people.
Will SkyRail be the choice of LA Metro? We will know more in roughly six months, as the 20-month study is expected to conclude by fall 2019.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
BYD (Build Your Dreams), a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles, has announced that its year-on-year electric car sales rose almost 300% for the month of January 2019 over January 2018.
BYD’s official number is 292%.
The company sold 28,005 electric cars in China in January, which is its third highest month ever.
The robust sales are in great part due to the continued success of its BYD Yuan, which set its eighth consecutive month of record sales with 10,093 vehicles.
The Yuan ranks #1 in the plug-in electric car segment in China.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
BYD (Build Your Dreams), a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles, has hit a remarkable figure in its quest to get the world of buses to change from the soot-belching, diesel polluters of yore, to a vehicle that’s on the forefront of environmentally sound transportation.
BYD reached has a new milestone with the completion of its 50,000th battery-electric bus.
The company notes that according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s research, operating 50,000 electric buses is equivalent to taking 1.35 million cars off the road and eliminating 84.5 million tons of C02 over the vehicles’ 12-year lifespan.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
BYD (Build Your Dreams), a world leader and pioneer in battery and zero-emission vehicles, has sold 64 electric buses to Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city.
The order is second in Latin America only to Chile’s order of 100 buses.
The buses will be BYD’s 12.5-meter-long K9G, which has a seating capacity of 80. The buses are have a range of roughly 300 kilometres per charge, with a two hour charging time.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million has grown in value almost ten-fold, and is now worth roughly $1.96 billion.
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
