
BYD, the World’s Biggest Electric Car Maker - zerogvt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-16/the-world-s-biggest-electric-vehicle-company-looks-nothing-like-tesla
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ThePhysicist
I’m currently in China and impressed by how many electric vehicles you find on
the road: Not only buses but also many cars and scooters. Besides their own
brands like BYD I saw a fair amount of Teslas as well, more than in Germany.
Pretty impressive how things changed since I’ve visited the country last time
(10 years ago), personally I think China will easily beat Europe in switching
to renewables. In general the infrastructure there improved drastically it
seems, many highways, train connections and public transport systems like
metros are on par or slightly above Western standard I’d say.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Teslas are popular in Beijing because EVs have a different pool in the license
plate lottery. Rich people who would’ve gotten a black Audi instead settle for
a Model S.

~~~
sfifs
That's good right? Incentivizing EV adoption by the trend setters

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seanmcdirmid
I mean, it isn’t bad. Government policies are pushing people this way, even if
most of the, still lack actual parking spots for their cars where they could
charge at home. Honestly, I don’t know how they do it, 70% of the parking in
Beijing is on street (usually illegally). Perhaps the Model S crowd can afford
parking spots, which is why you don’t see a lot of BYD EVs that aren’t fleet.

~~~
sfifs
> which is why you don’t see a lot of BYD EVs that aren’t fleet.

Yes infrastructure in most places needs to catch up but even so, having taxi
and bus fleets transform to EV is nothing to be sneezed at in any city.

Taxis (bith standard and Uber varieties) may often form 10% of vehicles in
cities (eg. where I live in Singapore) and disproportionately contribute to
miles driven and hence emissions and smoke. Having all of those transform to
EV is a very good thing.

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tim333
World's biggest is a bit questionable. As of 2018 BYD sales $16bn, Telsa
$21bn. Growth over previous year approx 24% BYD, 90% Tesla.

Charlie Munger remains a BYD fan - "BYD is going to be huge electric vehicles.
They are already huge. And they’re going to be much more huge..."
[http://latticeworkinvesting.com/2019/03/03/charlie-munger-
fu...](http://latticeworkinvesting.com/2019/03/03/charlie-munger-full-
transcript-of-daily-journal-annual-meeting-2019/)

~~~
robertAngst
And Nissan Leaf has outsold Tesla in number of vehicles.

~~~
MoreFalseInfo
This is false. The Leaf passed 400K sales last month:
[https://newsroom.nissan-global.com/releases/nissan-leaf-
firs...](https://newsroom.nissan-global.com/releases/nissan-leaf-first-
electric-car-to-pass-400k-sales?lang=en-US&rss)

Tesla had delivered more than 500K cars by the end of last year:
[https://insideevs.com/tesla-production-deliveries-
graphed-q4...](https://insideevs.com/tesla-production-deliveries-
graphed-q4-2018/)

So the Leaf has outsold each Tesla model but not Tesla in total number of
vehicles.

~~~
mikeash
This comment chain is a good example of mesofacts.
[http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02...](http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02/28/warning_your_reality_is_out_of_date/)

I’m pretty sure BYD had more sales than Tesla until pretty recently. The Leaf
outsold Tesla until recently. Both were true for quite some time. If you
learned those facts, it’s easy to miss when they stop being facts.

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11thEarlOfMar
What occurs to me is the different approaches to attacking the same market.
BYD, at least as characterized by the author, took an incremental approach to
learning the technology and market, starting with buses as a kind of low-
hanging fruit and then building on that learning.

Tesla identified the primary market challenge of range anxiety and design &
performance stereotypes went straight at them with high consequence
investments in charger infrastructure, battery technology strategies,
gigafactory, 'appealing' design, and incredible performance. It's kind of a
tortoise vs. hare and at least as far as this article is concerned, both
approaches are having success on their own terms.

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AFascistWorld
[https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-electric-
buses-201...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-electric-
buses-20180520-story.html)

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benj111
"Their engines had been installed a few moments earlier"

Don't they mean motors? Or are they interchangeable in this context now?

~~~
syntaxing
Not sure why you're being down voted but it's a good question since my
Professor spent some time to explain this. I think if you think of the literal
definition in the English dictionary, then the wording is correct. However,
most people in the technical community would agree engin is a subclass of
motor that uses a cyclical process to convert power to motion.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> most people in the technical community

Not this member of the technical community; an engine is simply something that
makes something else go or achieve an end. In my field we have calculation
engines, these are neither electric nor cyclical.

And a motor is essentially the same thing. Engines can be steam, ICE,
electric, programmatic, or even man powered (for instance a siege engine).

Perhaps it's different where you come from or, perhaps, there is more than one
technical community.

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epynonymous
i live in shanghai and have ridden in many byd's, basically the compact car
model is very popular for didi drivers which is the equivalent of uber/lyft
here. I'm not 100% certain if that compact byd is 100% electric, but it seems
to drive quiet. There are government incentives to buy electric cars, less
tax, lower price, the license plate is also a lot cheaper. In shanghai a
license plate costs 100k rmb (15k usd) and you have to compete with tens of
thousands others in a lottery system to get the right to buy one in the first
place, for electric cars it's less than 100 usd. Some workarounds are to
purchase a license plate from out of shanghai, but that means you can't drive
on the highways and expressways during rush hour traffic (7:00-10:30 and
15:00-20:00 mon-fri), if you're caught by any of the millions of cameras,
that's a 3 point fine and 200 rmb (you get 11 points per year which means you
need to retake drivers ed. And re-test).

The byd's i've ridden in seem ok, quite underpowered, but good for city
driving, i don't know how good the mileage is for one charge, but it's
comfortable to sit in for a small compact, never had an issues with it as a
passenger. Then again, i would never buy one of these myself, it's about 280k
rmb, this is for a domestic car, there are a lot of other choices at that cost
point for foreign cars even.

I just test-drove a model x tesla today, much nicer, but not the same price
point, about 790k rmb.

I think warren buffet or someone invested a lot in byd, they have an suv
version, too.

~~~
tim333
Yeah Buffett's co invested $232 million in 2008 for about a quarter of the
company.

~~~
epynonymous
Thanks for the note

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deesep
BYD is a an acronym for “build your dreams” :)

~~~
gibolt
It is actually the first letters of the romanized Chinese name. 比亚迪 Bǐ Yà Dí.

'Build Your Dreams' is just good English marketing.

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Waterluvian
I'm completely ignorant of the topic. Are Chinese auto safety standards any
good? Would these cars be allowed on North American or European roads?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ask the Australians, they’ve had a few scandals with Chinese car imports and
safety.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Are they any worse than economy cars from 20yr ago?

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seanmcdirmid
Maybe 30 years ago. They did ok on the ones they used for certification, but
after than quality slipped and they became death traps (what anyone doing
manufacturing in China has to look out for, actually).

