While You Were Sleeping: Mad Max, Maria De Villota's Mad Family and Mad Funny Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Mad Max has been tearing up the box office since mid-May. To capitalize on George Miller’s latest explogasm that’s putting Michael Bay in his place, Warner Brothers has made a video game, too.

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While You Were Sleeping: Cadillac ATS-V+, Holden Monza and Lamborghini Urus Receives Greenlight

This edition of While You Were Sleeping offers up a bit more than usual. Instead of just overnight, we are going to try to cover as many topics from over the long weekend as possible with additional commentary.

Here we go!

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Uber, BYD Sign Deal To Test EV Fleet In Chicago

Chicago Uber customers are the first to take a ride in a Chinese-made EV, thanks to a deal between BYD and the transportation network company.

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Beijing 2014: Daimler and BYD Introduce Denza EV With 300KM Range

The first fruits of Daimler and BYD’s Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology Co. joint venture is on display at the Beijing auto show this week. The partnership intends to blend BYD’s latest battery technology with more than a century of manufacturing experience at the maker of Mercedes-Benz automobiles. Schedule to launch on the Chinese market in September of this year, the Denza is a five passenger car with a 115 hp (86 kW) electric motor that has a top speed of 93 mph and a range of up to 186 miles (300 km). Produced at a factory in Shenzhen, the Denza was jointly designed in China, reflecting the Chinese government’s policy requiring foreign automakers to establish joint technical centers in China and to share technology with their Chinese partners.

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California Drops Wage Dispute Charges Against BYD's Electric Bus Factory

China’s BYD Co. has announced that a California labor law watchdog had dropped charges against it over wage issues regarding the payment of Chinese nationals working for the company’s BYD Coach & Bus subsidiary in the United States. Reuters is reporting that California’s Labor Commissioner’s office in October accused BYD of failing to pay five Chinese workers temporarily working in the United States the required minimum wage of $8/hr.

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BYD Coming to America in 2015

Backed by Warren Buffet and his investment company Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.,Automotive News is reporting that Chinese automaker BYD plans to deliver four models to the United States in late 2015.

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BYD Responds to Calif. Charges of Labor Violations & Fine With Promise To Hire More U.S. Workers As It Hopes To Expand Production To Europe
In response to charges that it’s California electric bus building operation has been violating that state’s labor and minimum wage laws in the wa…
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BYD Wants to Rule The World Hong Kong's Taxi Market

Scaling back from its former intentions of becoming “China’s No. 1 automaker by 2015 and the world’s leading car maker by 2025,” China’s BYD now wants to become a world-class fish in Hong Kong’s taxi pond.

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Shanghai Auto Show: BYD And Daimler Show First Glimpse At Joint EV While BYD Gets Mad At Reuters

The Denza shows its stripes

So Denza, the odd couple joint venture between Daimler and BYD, lifted the veil of its upcoming all-electric SUV. A car in heavy camouflage rolled on stage here at the Shanghai Motor Show. The car looked, well, like the old B-Class from which it is derived.

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BYD Seen Ditching Gasoline-Powered Cars

BYD, the company we visited in yesterday’s story might ditch conventional gasoline-powered cars and focus on electrics, Reuters says in an exclusive story,

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Inside The Industry: A Visit At Denza, Daimler's EV Joint Venture With BYD

At the Shanghai Auto Show, which opens to the public on April 21, and to tens of thousands of alleged members of the media the day before, the child of one of the auto industry’s oddest couples will be shown – at least in prototype form. It is the Denza EV, the product of a mésalliance between the world’s oldest and proudest automaker, Daimler, and a company that entered the annals of contemporary automotive history as the most brazen rip-off artist.

Of course we are talking of BYD, the Shenzhen, China, based maker of half the world’s cellphone batteries and a dwindling number of cars. A while ago, I visited an intrepid team of German engineers, shacked up at BYD, to jointly develop an electric car. They were friendly, hospitable, and as forthcoming as possible under the strange circumstances. For months, I could not bring it over me to put my fellow countrymen and expats in the dim light this story would project. Their job is tough enough. But in the interest of timeliness and journalistic duty, here it goes.

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Man With Rebadged Red Car Proposes Sex To Japanese

A fiery red car, seen in Beijing. An aggressive bumper sticker, showing the owner is very angry with Japan. Or, judging from the sticker, maybe it’s hot love? It’s all about those islands, which happen to sit on top of oil, and straight in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. What is this motherland-loving man driving?

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BYD Finally Exports Cars: 50 Taxis To London

BYD had made lots of announcements of exporting cars to the free world, but none of them have panned out so far. Remember BYD’s plans to take over America? Now finally we have what Reuters calls BYD’s “first overseas deal.” BYD will ship 50 e6 electric taxis to London in the second quarter of 2013.

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Been There, Done That: BYD Introduces Watch That Starts The Car

Chinese upstart carmaker BYD isn’t as lucky as it used to be. Its sales and stock price are deep in the Chinese squat toilet. However, it is outdoing itself in the gadget dept. BYD, the company that brought us the remote controlled car, now brings us the watch that opens your car’s doors and starts it. Call it keyless entry that goes with the times.

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BYD Launches Remote Controlled Car

BYD’s F3 received worldwide acclaim for being a Corolla ripoff. When the new F3 was announced at the Beijing Auto Show, Carnewschina wrote: “The new F3 is design-wise slightly better than the old BYD F3 which was a copy of the old Toyota Corolla, the new F3 is a copy of the new Corolla but slightly less obvious. For BYD, we call that a huge improvement!” Come on, Carnewschina, the new BYD F3 has something the Corolla does not have: A remote control. Not a remote control for doors. You can drive the car remotely like a toy.

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