Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Recent Updates: BYD

SAIC to Adopt Li Battery Stacks of BYD

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC), one of China's leading automakers, reached accord with BYD Corp., a well-known battery supplier, to purchase the latter's lithium battery stacks, said sources. These battery stacks will be installed on hybrid models under Roewe, a proprietary brand of the automaker, they added. A sales executive with BYD confirmed that his company really signed an agreement with a domestic giant, but declined to tell its name.

Subsidy will help plug-in hybrid sales, BYD says

Chinese battery and vehicle maker BYD Co said it was bullish about sales of its F3DM plug-in hybrid car, after regulators recommended the energy-efficient model as eligible for government subsidies.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) recently unveiled the list of a first batch of new-energy vehicle models that have got regulatory approval for production and sale.

According to a statement on the MIIT website, there were five new-energy vehicle models in the list - Nanjing Iveco's electric commercial vehicle, Jianghuai Auto's electric engineering vehicle, JMC's electric service vehicle, Zotye Auto's electric light minibus, and BYD's plug-in hybrid sedan.

"Being the only sedan on the list, we qualify for the highest subsidy level of as much as 50,000 yuan ($7316) per unit. Hence, we are optimistic about the F3DM model's sales to individual customers, which will start next month," said a BYD spokesperson.

BYD added to H-shares

The compiler of Hong Kong's stock indexes said Friday it will make no changes to the constituents of the blue-chip Hang Seng Index but added Chinese battery and electric car maker BYD Co. [s:hk:1211] to the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, or H-share index, lifting the number of constituents in the share tracker to 44.

Related Article

Another company Buffett recently invested in is BYD, the Chinese battery giant that has released an electric vehicle with a range of 250 miles. Reiten met with BYD executives while in China with Gov. Ted Kulongoski on a trade mission, and those discussions have led to a compelling new collaboration Reiten calls "potentially a game- changer," with super-efficient batteries storing the extra electricity while the wind is humming or the sun is beating down, to transmit it through the system at a later time when it is needed.

"BYD is the No. 1 cell phone battery manufacturing company in the world," says Reiten. "They have staked their company on being the best in terms of batteries and we think there are utility applications."

The partnership could develop into something exciting. Then again, it could flop. Either way, there will be no quick fix to the challenges Reiten and PacifiCorp face. As he lays out his strategy Reiten has a lot to say about a lot of things, but he doesn't say much about coal, which is PacifiCorp's greatest asset and its greatest liability.

No comments:

Google