BYD Claims That 2013 Will Be Its Breakout Year for Plug-In Vehicle Sales

By Eric Loveday · February 28, 2013

BYD's all-electric e6.

Plug-in vehicles sales for BYD have been slowly gaining in recent years, but earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese automaker now claims that 2013 will be its break-out year.

In 2012, BYD sold only 2,400 plug-in vehicles—700 of those were commercial electric buses, which probably means only 1,700 passenger vehicle sales were recorded. It's tough to pin down exact numbers from BYD. The company has been promoting its EVs for years, and has promised to enter major global markets, including the United States. But few, if any, of its plans have materialized. Nonetheless, the automaker's target for 2013 is 10,000 units. The breakdown, according to BYD, works out this way: 8,000 plug-in passenger vehicles and 2,000 electric buses.

As we previously reported, fleet sales will trump private purchases for BYD. "We feel that the use of electric vehicles in public transport is the first step and a more realistic way to promote and popularize the products," said Liu Xueliang, general manager for Asia-Pacific automotive sales at BYD. "With the more widespread use of our electric cars in public transport, we can further promote them to government organizations and retail car buyers.”

The Chinese government promotes the purchase of plug-in vehicle with incentives of up to 120,000 yuan (about U.S. $19,000). China has set an ambitious target of 500,000 plug-in vehicles on roads by 2015 and 5 million by 2020. The country is committed to growing the EV sector, but there is still no agreement at the top as to the best way to do that. And in recent months, the government has broadened its efficiency goals to include nearly any technology that will reduce fuel consumption.

About the author

· Eric Loveday

Eric Loveday is an automotive enthusiast who is passionate about everything auto. He purchased a 1970 Chevelle at age 16, quickly outgrew its dated engineering and outrageous consumption of gasoline, and sold it off. Eric developed a true passion for automotive writing after graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in print journalism. Eric spent most of his time since then ...

Full bio · 353 posts

Comments

· Bill Howland · 11 weeks ago

Well I guess they have to have something for all those Scruberless Coal Plants to run, that they were building at the rate of 2 per week. (Same kind of issue with Mexico, where "Clean" San Diego is getting its juice now that Nuclear Basket Case San Onofre is down for the count, and likewise India).

Its a tongue biting issue for me since we have plenty of very very clean Coal plants here which recover 99% of the sulfur dioxide and 90% of the Mercury (which is used mostly for vaccine preservative these days) that are shut down due to excessive "carbon taxes", but china builds hundreds of Coal Fired plants with absolutely horrible pollution controls (if any). But then thats the least of their problems because they have Rivers and Streams regularly "Catching Fire", burning off the industrial pollution.

People used to come to my door petitioning against the Mercury being released by US Coal Plants. Where I live, the pollution mainly comes from less strict emission Nanticoke plants (West of me in Ontario Canada).

I didn't sign since I don't see worrying about a trace amount of Mercury that might be released to the air, when the same petitioners have absolutely no problem injecting it full strength directly into their veins.

· Smidge204 · 11 weeks ago

You need some citations on China's pollution controls for their coal plants. Fact is their plants are a far sight better than ours: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es1025678

As for the mercury thing... oh joy.

The mercury released by coal plants, which is raw metallic mercury, will bioaccumulate... (that's a fancy word meaning ti stays in the body.) Thiomersal does not bioaccumulate, so it does not work its way up the food chain once it's released into the environment, becoming more and more concentrated, until it gets to your dinner plate. It is the accumulation of mercury in the food chain that is the danger.

To imply thiomersal is toxic just because it has a mercury atom in it's constituent molecule is like saying table salt is deadly poison because it contains chlorine. You're basically saying nobody has the right to complain about clouds of chlorine gas because they own saltshakers. Chemistry does not work that way.

· Bill Howland · 11 weeks ago

Uh huh.. Perhaps since you know all about Chemistry you can tell me why cases of Autism, which used to be 1 in 100,000 are now about 1 in 60 and falling.

I'll trust the advise of Neurologist Dr. Russell Blayloch above your "authoritative statements".

People used to get alarmed when rivers caught fire in this country... In China apparently it is quite routine. So you're saying its a "green fire"?

· Bill Howland · 11 weeks ago

@Smidge

Your linked article is somewhat less than reassuring.. The author states "Although Scrubbers were avoided in the past, Most now appear to be operating correctly". That statement has a hole in it big enough to drive a truck through. I'm also glad they have some inspectors looking at things. Not mentioned is how they take care of the bribe problem.

They weren't supposed to put anti freeze in baby formula either but it happened. ,Apparently THAT was considered a bad enough problem that they executed the CEO after too many kids died..

· Bill Howland · 11 weeks ago

@Smidge204

Here's an excerpt from the pdf that indicates what I'm talking about is not misinformed:

Neurologist Dr. Russell Blaylock:

".On June 7-8, 2000 a secret conference was held at the Simpsonwood Conference Center in Norcross, Georgia to discuss a study examining the link between increasing doses of thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders. The study was done using the vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database,an official governmental data bank collecting patient vaccination information on the children from the health maintenance organizations (HMOs) being paid to participate. Attending were 51 scientists, representatives of pharmaceutical vaccine manufacturing companies and a representative of the World health Organization; the public and the media were unlawfully excluded.
The conclusions of this meeting were quite startling, since it confirmed a dose-response link between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders that held up to rigorous statistical analyses.

In their discussion, they make plain why the meeting was held in secret: the conclusions would have destroyed the public's confidence in the vaccine program, and more importantly, their faith in vaccine authorities. .."

· Bill Howland · 11 weeks ago

@Smidge204

I tried to copy the rest of the link but PluginCars says it contains illegal characters whatever that means. He said they fumbled with the data and finally released it so that the Causality was hidden.

Since this is a Car Blog, I'm not going to comment on it further. I just included it to show there's a good reason why I said it. Dr. Blaylock like you, knows All about Chemistry, but unlike you, he also knows about Politics.

· Benjamin Nead · 11 weeks ago

Putting the conversation back on track in regards to electric autos, I like the looks of the BYD e6. It seems to be devoid of the sort of awkward styling cues found on too many US and Japanese cars these days . . . especially the electric-powered ones, where stylists now seem compelled to make them look as unusual as possible.

What I see here is 1990's (retro?) no-nonsense form-following-function design. The lines are squared off and un-busy. The rear hatch looks to be almost vertical, actually providing some real cargo room in the process.

I'm sure the professional car reviewers will have pissy fits about how all the Chinese car look "old fashioned" and they'll probably also have disparaging words about the overall lack of luxury accoutrements inside. But this is par for the course for that crowd. I'm far more interested in how well the car holds up under normal wear and tear. Will the no-so-fancy knobs fall off 20K miles down the road? Is the cargo area large enough to stash my folding bike inside without disconnecting the front wheel? Can I actually see behind me with the rear view mirror, or is a television camera with dash display required?

While a lot of low end junk continues to be exported from China, this is a country that now has a successful manned space program. So they obviously know how to build stuff that works when they put their mind to it. As noted above, they have significant problems with coal-generated pollution. But they are also moving very quickly to adopt clean renewable energy and high speed rail to connect their geographically disparate cities.

PluginCars

BYD Claims That 2013 Will Be Its Breakout Year for Plug-In Vehicle Sales

About the author

Comments

All Discussions

Public EV Charging: Think Before You Plug In

Survey: To Be Satisfied, Electric Car Drivers Want 150 Miles of Range

Tesla Leads Because It Outsmarts the Competition

Exclusive: Chevrolet Volt Chief Engineer Explains Volt Drivetrain, Says "Volt is an Electric Vehicle"

Automakers Consider Polygons on Map to Show Electric Car Range

Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Moves Forward, In Long Beach Buses

Volvo Demos Second Generation C30 Electric, Keeps Quiet On EV Plans

Colorado Extends $6,000 Plug-in Vehicle Credit Through 2021

LEAF Hits 25,000 Sales, What It Needs To Pass 50,000

Nissan Renews Hope for Dramatic Increase of EV Rapid Chargers