BYD Triples Size Of California Bus Factory

BYD held the Grand Opening of Phase 3 of its Lancaster Bus and Coach Factory expansion on October 6th, 2017, with numerous company officials, dignitaries, and employees on hand to celebrate. CleanTechnica joined in the fun as well.

The event was held at BYD’s Lancaster Factory in one of the newly added sections of the factory. The increase in capacity added around 300,000 square feet to the factory, bringing it up to 450,000 square feet in total. BYD has only owned the facility for 4 years and has continually increased the number of employees and the size of the location in that time, including an addition that was only finalized in March of this year to accommodate assembling electric trucks.

Compared to the tour of the facility I went on in 2015, the new facility is more than 3 times the size. The new location increases BYD’s electric bus production capacity to 1,500 buses per year. It has increased its headcount up to 713 employees with plans to add 500 more in the coming 18 months. BYD’s plans for the facility are not new and the actions we are seeing merely keep pace with the extremely aggressive plan BYD had for the facility in the first place.

The factory’s primary function for the company is to build electric buses. Think of that as the physical shell and interior of the buses. It starts with cutting and welding of the aluminum frame components, which are trimmed and welded together based on customer specifications that can be selected from BYD’s numerous bus formats and then customized to the range required by the customer. BYD sizes its batteries such that they will be able to meet the customer’s required range even after an estimated 70% degradation at the end of their projected 12–15 year life.

As the frame takes shape, BYD’s technicians bolt in its in-hub motors, batteries, inverters, chargers, and all of the fun low-voltage components that service the passenger cabin: lighting, indicators, speakers, and the like. Then it’s good to go. Buses are painted or wrapped per the customer specification, tested, and then delivered. It is not a lighting fast process, but BYD’s new factory gives the company enough capacity to churn out ~4 buses per day, on average.

Don’t expect those production rates to be realized immediately. Rather, production will ramp up as customer orders increase. The BYD Lancaster facility is the largest dedicated electric bus manufacturing facility in the Americas — an honor BYD takes great pride in. This is a testament to BYD’s continued foresight into where the market is headed and the pace at which the market is ramping up, as well as its own ability to bring down costs and ramp up production capacity.

Government officials and BYD leadership alike spoke to the importance of working together and, indeed, a diverse representation of Democratic and Republican leaders was pulled together to pave the way for BYD’s entrance into the United States and into Lancaster, which speaks to the importance of working towards common ground. For its part, BYD pushed hard to find the best location after identifying the US as the correct nation for growth at the time.

BYD’s move into the Americas will continue to evolve and expand as the market for electric vehicles continues to grow … and there is more to come from this event, but that will come later. For now, know that BYD has moved into its home territory in Asia aggressively; then expanded to Europe, South America, and North America with a force that reveals insight into the direction each of those regions is heading.

We love BYD and wewill continue to push and pull to get the latest updates from the company. And we’ll keep poking at the BYD team to encourage them to bring passenger cars like the BYD Tang (below, in California) to the US for American fleets and consumers.

BYD Built More Cars With Plugs Than Any Other Manufacturer In 2016

The numbers are out and for the second year in a row, Chna’s BYD can claim the title at the world’s largest manufacturer of cars with plugs — either plug-in hybrids or battery electric vehicles. The numbers are for passenger cars and do not include the electric buses that BYD is manufacturing both in China and the United States or any of the low speed models that are known in the US as Neighborhood Electric Vehicles that are not licensed for highway travel.

All told, BYD sold  a total of 100,178 electrified vehicles — 46,905 battery electrics and 53,273 plug-in hybrids. The company makes two plug-in hybrid models. The Qin sedan accounted for 21,868 sales while the stylish Tang SUV chalked up 31,405 sales.

Some Americans may be familiar with the battery electric e6, a five door front wheel drive wagon that has recently had its battery upgraded to 80 kWh for an EPA rated range of 187 miles. A fleet of them are being used by Uber drivers in the Chicago area as BYD evaluates its readiness to take on the American market. It has a 72 MPGe rating, which is fairly underwhelming, considering the new Toyota Prius Prime is rated at 133 MPGe and the recently introduced Kia Niro crossover is rated 150 MPGe..

The company currently sells no cars here but says, “BYD has not launched consumer vehicle sales in North America, but has sold more than 16,000 e6s worldwide year to date. When BYD does launch in North America, we look forward to competitive sales figures here as well.”

For battery electrics. BYD sold 20,605 of the e6 wagons, 10,656 Qin EV models, and 15,639 of the smaller e5 sedans. It also sold 5 of its T3 electric commercial vans. Not included in the numbers are any of the Denza compact hatchbacks that BYD builds in partnership with Daimler. The company says it sold 13,278 all electric buses in 2016 and a total of 859 battery electric commercial trucks.

BYD may not be a household name in the US yet, but it is definitely one of the leaders in the green car revolution worldwide.

Source: Green Car Reports

BYD electric-car sales may triple this year, Chinese maker says

2016 BYD Tang plug-in hybrid SUV, made in China

China's BYD eked out a global victory in electric-car sales last year, selling more plug-in cars than BMW, General Motors, Nissan, Renault, or Tesla.

The company delivered nearly 62,000 battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles last year, almost entirely in China.

Now, the company projects that it may be able to sell close to three times that number this year.

According to Bloomberg, BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu said the company may sell as many as 150,000 so-called New Energy Vehicles in China this year.

Both national and local Chinese governments are penalizing vehicles with combustion engines and incentivizing plug-in vehicles with a variety of rebates, tax advantages, and registration privileges.

The push for electric cars has two purposes. First, it's part a strenuous effort to reduce the notorious and hazardous air pollution in China's cities.

BYD e6 electric taxi in service in Shenzhen, China

Second, it encourages Chinese carmakers to get experience with designing and building plug-in cars, which it views as a critical part of the global auto market in future years.

New Energy Vehicles include both emission-free battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, the latter being far more popular.

The network of public charging stations in China remains spotty, and a huge percentage of new-car buyers live in high-rise apartments rather than single-family homes.

That makes it entirely unclear whether any of those plug-in hybrids are actually ever plugged in.

Last year's new-energy vehicles sales in China totaled more than 330,000.

That figure, however, includes what would be deemed low-speed or neighborhood electric vehicles that aren't included in North American and European sales totals.

BYD K9 All-Electric Bus

The official goal is for China to have 5 million such vehicles on its roads by 2020.

Famed investor Warren Buffet took a stake in BYD back in 2008, through his Berkshire Hathaway holding company, and has held it since then.

While BYD planned to launch its passenger cars into the U.S. market several years ago, it has pulled back from those plans and is focusing on electric buses instead.

California electric-car startup Tesla Motors will start taking orders in China next quarter for its Model X luxury crossover SUV, even before it launches the car in Europe.

The company had early hopes of strong success in China, but it stumbled at first and replaced the head of its Chinese unit.

The growing market for new-energy vehicles, however, is likely to help its long-term aspirations in China, which include a production plan for the Model 3 vehicle it will unveil this week.

BYD Sold The Most Cars With Plugs In 2015

We have been talking a lot since the beginning of the year about which company sold the most electric cars in 2015. For the purposes of this story, “electric” is defined as any car with a plug, whether it is a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt or a battery electric car like the Tesla Model S.

According to Green Car Reports, BMW sold “about 30,000” of its i3 and i8 cars. Chevrolet sold approximately 20,000 Volts and Spark EVs. Ford sold a similar number of Fusion PHEV, C Max PHEV and Focus Electric cars. Nissan sold 17,269 LEAF automobiles in the US, but it also markets that car and the electric e-NV200 van in many nations around the world. Green Car Reports total sales at around 50,000 worldwide.

That leaves Tesla with 50,557 cars delivered in all markets in 2015. So that means Tesla is the plug-in champ, right? Actually, no. Tesla’s performance is extraordinary, for sure. But the global plug-in sales leader is a company most Americans have never heard of — BYD.

The Chinese company made the world’s first production plug-in hybrid, the F3DM, in December 2008, which went on sale two years before the Chevrolet Volt. The F3DM was crude compared to the Chevrolet offering, but it started the company on the road to producing more and better electric vehicles. Along the way, it got into the electric bus business, and is now one of the world’s largest manufacturers of both urban and intercity electrified buses. Its forward progress even convinced Warren Buffett to invest in the company.

BYD makes battery electric vehicles, including the E6 hatchback which is used for taxi service in several cities. Uber is using them as well in Chicago.  It also makes a variety of plug-in hybrids, including the newer Qin compact sedan and Tang compact SUV. According to the company, it delivered 31,898 Qins and 18,375 Tangs, along with 7,029 of the older E6s, during 2015. Add in a few T3 small commercial vans, some E5 battery electric compact sedans, and 2,888 compact Denza hatchbacks built as part of its joint venture with Daimler and the total comes out to be 61,722 BYD vehicles with plugs sold last year.

Just to be clear, all of those are highway capable cars. The numbers do not include any low speed neighborhood electric vehicles, although BYD produces lots of those as well. The US is celebrating a record year for new car sales, with almost 17.5 million sold. The Chinese market eclipsed that total by more than 3 million vehicles. Cadillac and Buick will both import Chinese made cars this year. The future of the car industry is taking shape now in the Orient.

Uber To Test Up To 200 BYD e6 Electric Crossovers In Chicago

Chinese automaker Build Your Dreams, or BYD as its better known, has pledged build nothing but plug-in cars, and its ambitions stretch beyond China’s borders. Besides a few electric buses though, vehicles bearing the BYD badge are few and far between in the USA. A new partnership with car-sharing service Uber is about to change that, at least in Chicago.

Reuters reports that Uber has already leased 25 BYD e6 electric crossovers for testing purposes in Chicago, and that number could soon expand to some 200 EVs if the pilot program proves successful.BYD launched a similar program in London last December, and the scheme sees Uber offering its low-cost UberX drivers a chance to buy or lease one of the electric crossovers for about $200 a week,. Those who decide to lease return their taxi to an Uber garage for charging after their shift, though drivers could eventually have the option of buying an e6 for themselves through a lease-to-own program operated by Green Wheels Chicago.

Never heard of the BYD e6? That’s not surprising, as the electric crossover is sold almost exclusively in China, though the automaker is making a push to get it seen as an effective fleet solution. The automaker claims an urban driving range of about 187 miles per charge, though according to the EPA’s estimates, 127 miles is a more accurate assessment of the e6’s range. The 101 horsepower electric motor isn’t likely to impress many people with its get-up-and-go, but the weekly $200 lease deal isn’t much more than the $130 to $150 a week many Uber drivers spend on gasoline alone. So getting to drive a brand new electric car for just a little more than the price of gas (which drivers themselves are responsible for) certainly has appeal for those who may have balked at the seemingly-high weekly lease price.

While BYD may be having trouble breaking into the consumer car market, if it can find success selling to fleet buyers like Uber, its long-delayed entry into the American market may finally happen.