Will BYD's electric car reduce carbon emissions?
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Wed, Jan 13, 2010
BYD, short for Build Your Dreams, is planning to launch Chinese-built electric cars in the U.S in the later part of 2010.
BYD has a very interesting story. Its founder, Wang Chuan-Fu, was described as a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch by Charlie Munger around the time when Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's legendary company, made an investment in BYD. Wang started BYD in 1995 with $300,000 and set out to manufacture cellphone batteries to compete with Sony and Sanyo. Within 5 years, BYD was the world leader in cellphone batteries. Having known the automotive business very little, Wang entered it in 2003 and started churning out cars that became best sellers in China.
BYD plans to introduce an electric plug-in called e6 into the US this year. A large part of the plug-in's success will depend on BYD's lithium-ion ferrous phosphate battery technology. e6 is a five passenger car that can travel upwards of 200 miles on a single charge.
But how helpful will electric cars be in reducing carbon emissions if the electricity required to charge them comes from fossil fuels? Instead of burning gasoline in a car engine, coal or natural gas is burnt in a power plant. The emissions, though less in magnitude, will still be released. But, what if the electricity required to charge the car came from green energy sources instead? Now, that would make a much bigger difference.