But it's the battery in BYD Auto's new E6 fully electric car, not the design, that is currently causing the buzz in the decidedly dejected auto industry.
Instead of being made with lithium ion, which is expensive, increasingly hard to come by, environmentally unfriendly and potentially dangerous in a crash, BYD has devised a battery that uses ferrous ion, which is cheap, plentiful and green. If it turns out to be as functional as the Chinese company claims, it could be the breakthrough needed to finally bring electric cars into the mainstream.
Warren Buffett obviously thinks it is. The U. S. financier invested US$230-million in BYD last year.
At the time, David Sokol, chairman of MidAmerican, a subsidiary of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, called the BYD battery "a technology that can really be a game changer" when it comes to reducing emission from automobiles.
The E6 can go 400 kilometres on a charge, but it's actually designed for quick 10-minute, 50% charges, that will last 200 km. The problem is, an ordinary wall socket won't do the job: The E6 needs a dedicated, high voltage charging station.
BYD is working on that with Chinese electrical companies, the government and large fleet owners, such as taxis companies, and hoping for a breakthrough by the time it launches the E6 at the end of 2009. Meanwhile, it is expending its promotional energy on its DM, dual-mode electric-gas cars.
BYD -- they are actually the Pinyin initials for its Chinese name, but now the company says they also stand for its motto, Build Your Dreams -- already boasts the bestselling gas-guzzling sedan in the China market and is making inroads with the DM version of it that is now in showrooms. The F3-DM goes 100 km on a single nine-hour charge from a household socket and costs about US$22,000. It's cheaper, goes further and is available a year ahead of the expected launch of its potential rival, the hybrid Chevy Volt that is slated for a 2010 debut.
So far, the F3-DM is only being marketed to fleet owners such as the government, big companies and taxi firms, according to Paul Lin, marketing manager for BYD's export division. The reason is simple and uniquely Chinese, he says. "In China, people live in dormitories [apartment buildings] instead of houses, so they don't have garages. They don't have anywhere to plug their cars in."
He sees that as a "technical difficulty," however, that is bound to be overcome or superseded soon, given the Beijing government's recently announced plan to turn China into the world's largest manufacturer of electric cars.
China's strategy is to invest heavily in research while at the same time offering sizable consumer subsidies to electric cars buyers. It is already helping fleet owners who purchase dual-mode vehicles to the tune of US$8,800 per car, but soon individuals will be eligible for rebates, too.
"The fiscal subsidy gives voting rights to the consumers," Zhang Shaochun, vice-minister of finance, said at a conference this month.
Plans for electric charging stations for both E6s and F3-DMs can't be too far behind.
In many ways, China is the perfect launch pad for the worldwide drive to push electric cars into the mainstream. It doesn't yet have a fully developed infrastructure to support a nationwide addiction to long-distance driving, so there is not a generation lusting for speed and fuel capacity in their automobiles, as there is in North America.
Instead, when a Chinese consumer finally reaches the financial position to consider buying a car, he or she will be looking for the best model for short city commutes in grid-locked traffic. That's the reality of life in places such as Shanghai, Beijing and Chongqing.
Moreover, a potential Chinese car-buyer is likely to be fairly pollution-conscious. Traffic fumes are already a choking issue in many Chinese cities and they are getting worse every day.
In an interview at the Shanghai Auto Show this week, Mr. Lin said BYD hopes to follow the fully electric E6's China debut with a European and North American launch in 2011. But, he also mentioned that the company was looking at a range of options besides opening up its own assembly plants, distribution systems and dealerships.
"We have several choices. We will analyze and try to find the best way to go. We are trying to find very good partners to enter the market with," he said.
Mr. Lin and several other BYD employees have been test-driving the E6 since last December and, while obviously biased, he claims it feels very much like an ordinary gas-fuelled car.
"The acceleration for the E6, the big car, is less than seven seconds. From one to 60 km/h it's fast, even like the BMW," he boasts.
And it is very, very quiet, he says. "Sometimes when you go to a shopping mall parking lot you can have a problem. People don't hear you coming so they don't notice you. You need to knock-knock [on the window] to get their attention.
"At the company we joke sometimes that we should put a recorder inside our car that you could turn on and it would go: Vroom, vroom."
