#BYD

Yesterday night, I skyped with Ash Sutcliffe of Chinacartimes, and he kvetched that TTAC doesn’t give him enough “link love”. I pride myself in the knowledge of esoteric ways of showing affection, but link love? Would it have something to do with chains? Finally, it dawned on me that I make link love to Ash by topping his URL with TTAC’s high traffic words. And there is no better moment than this. Ash found the first real review of a real BYD plug in hybrid, performed by a real, card-carrying member of the press. My link love goes out to you for this, Ash!

Troubled BYD has even more problems: Dealers defect the Chinese car maker, because the alleged master of the electric vehicle has perfected one ancient tradecraft: The art of channel stuffing. A Beijing BYD store switched to another brand because BYD required them to carry a whopping six times the monthly selling rate on the lot. The poor dealer that moved 70 BYDs in a good month was sitting on a steadily restocked inventory of 400 units.

Even that generous inventory strategy did not help:

BYD had a bit of a rough time lately. This might cheer them up: According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, a joint design team of BYD and Daimler has finished the styling of an all-electric battery car that will be launched by a BYD/Daimler ( or “Benz” as they call them in China) joint venture.

And here another BYD first: BYD is the first Chinese company to perform a massive dealer cull. “BYD has admitted its sales network grew too fast and has cut the number of dealerships by 100,” reports People’s Daily.

We have covered the Governator wooing not-so-gloriously-doing BYD to come to California, well, at least with a headquarter building. We were also interested to hear that BYD “is in talks with officials in Los Angeles to supply all-electric battery buses in the city.”

The Wall Street Journal revisited old investigative reporting glory and did some thorough digging into the matter. And here is what transpired, all as per the WSJ:

China’s BYD needs good news real bad. The Chinese market for EVs is … what Chinese market for EVs? And wasn’t their E6 coming to the U.S.? Whatever happened to that? That’s what we get from investors brought to California by the Governator. Oh well, Jerry Brown instead. In the meantime (as in “mean”), Nissan delivers its first real Leaf to California man. BYD will sink into irrelevance, unless they come up with something, fast.

Suddenly, they have a swell idea. Something way bigger than cars.

It was supposed the car that changes the game. The BYD F3e was touted as an EV with a range of 300km (186 miles). It was supposed to have a miracle battery with a recharge-time (to 70 percent) of only ten minutes. At the same time, it promised a top speed of 150km/h (93 mph) and a 0 to 60 mph time of less than 13.5seconds. What’s less, the car was supposed to cost no more than $22,400. And the government was willing to grant generous subsidies. How can you go wrong with something like that? You can: That car will not see the light and is being aborted by its Chinese parents. Why?

Wasn’t BYD the miraculous Chinese company that would bring electric cars to the masses? Weren’t they supposed to go hundreds of miles on a single charge? Forget about it. So far, their electric cars are being tested as taxis in Shenzhen in low numbers. What if you would be crazy enough to buy one yourself? They won’t sell you one.

BYD, that Chinese company that could do no wrong, and that has been anointed by Warren Buffet’s golden hand (and money), is in a bit of a rough patch lately. As if there was no shortage of Bad Yucky Dreams lately, here is more. You want the bad news or the really bad news first?

BYD hasn’t been doing so well for months. BYD’s August sales dropped 5.9 percent from previous month and 19 percent from a year earlier, Reuters says. Just a few days ago, BYD blamed force majeure for its misfortunes: Seasonal factors, floods and mudslides had impacted sales, they said.

A year ago, BYD issued the startling announcement that “it’s our company’s long-term target, to be China’s No. 1 automaker by 2015 and to be the world’s leading car maker by 2025.” Meaning that they would have to unseat either Volkswagen or Toyota. When they said that, polite analysts in China opined that BYD’s dream was “realistic” because China and other Asian markets show more promise for growth than the relatively mature US and European markets. In private, people were wondering what drinks they were serving at BYD’s cafeteria.

Now BYD spokesman Lin Mi told Beijing’s Global Times that they may have been a bit overconfident.

Think GM has a tough sell for its coming IPO? Chinese battery/automaker BYD is preparing its own $420m stock offering, likely to be floated on the Shenzhen A-Shares exchange, in the midst of a Chinese-market downturn, and an ongoing lawsuit with electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn. And all this comes after a long run of good news for the Hong Kong-listed BYD, which had been running strong on optimism generated by Warren Buffet’s major investment in the firm nearly two years ago. So, is BYD in real trouble of having its overvalued stock burst, or is the company strong enough to weather the storm that’s swirling around it?

Reacting to previously reported bad news, China’s BYD has cut its 2010 sales target by 25 percent to still quite ambitious 600,000 units, reports The Nikkei [sub].

In most parts of the world, electric vehicles are treated as the second coming of Jesus. Meanwhile in Omaha, Warren Buffett is having doubts whether it was such a good idea to pay $230m for 10 percent of China’s cellphonebattery/car/EV/appliance/house builder BYD.

BYD’s share price has fallen by more than 40 percent over the past three months, China’s First Financial Daily remarks (via Gasgoo.) Can you guess the main reason for the serious drubbing?

Ok, so we heard that BYD is moving onto the home appliance market. Now, BYD takes development to a whole new level We hear that they will build whole homes! No drywall comments, please, these are environmentally friendly homes. China’s electric car manufacturer BYD Auto teamed up with California’s KB Home to build new energy homes in Lancaster, California. The first-phase construction of the project has recently been completed, Gasgoo says.