Battery maker turned car company BYD Co. has launched China's first homegrown hybrid vehicle for the retail market, seeking an edge over its crisis-stricken international rivals.
BYD presented the vehicle, known as the F3DM, in a ceremony in the southern city of Shenzhen, where local officials have pledged to buy some of the cars in support of the project.
The vehicle can run up to 100 kilometres on its electric engine, and when it runs low on power shifts to a back up gasoline engine. Its battery can fully charge in nine hours from a regular electrical outlet, or much faster at BYD's own charging stations, the company said in a statement.
The car will sell for 149,800 yuan ($27,000 Cdn), about the same as many Chinese-made mid-sized cars, it said.
Although the car is just now hitting the market, BYD claims to have leapfrogged larger automakers to be the first company to commercialize plug-in hybrid technology, which allows the batteries of the F3DM — DM stands for dual mode — to be recharged without any special infrastructure.
GM, Toyota to roll out plug-in cars in 2010
General Motors Corp.'s own plug-in electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, is due to roll out in late 2010. Toyota Motor Corp. also is pushing to get a plug-in electric vehicle to market in 2010, while Ford Motor Co., says it is five years away from producing them in significant numbers. Still, developing a safe plug-in has been a major challenge for automakers, and it was unclear what sort of standards the BYD vehicle had met.
BYD, a private company based in Shenzhen, started out as a maker of rechargeable batteries. Its foray into electric car manufacturing drew broader attention recently when MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., invested in a 9.9 per cent stake in the company.
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