BYD's rapidly-sinking electric dreams

[kamnet]

Chinese manufacturer BYD is rapidly declining. Last year profits dropped nearly 83%, largely from a mix of increased competition in the Chinese electric automobile market (it's core business) and across-the-board reductions in financial aid from the Chinese government.

BYD, which started out as a manufacturer of mobile phone batteries and expanded into industrial batteries before turning into a dominant auto manufacturer, is trying to diversify by delivering all-electric, battery-powered mass transit systems. This includes one of its most high-profile projects, a deal with Los Angeles, CA Metro to convert into an all-electric fleet. But the buses are not performing as the company promised, and the company has had to resort to a lot of politics in order to keep the contract alive. http://www.govtech.com/fs/transportatio ... racts.html

Another area of mass transit they're expanding into is monorails. They just secured the project rights Salvador, Brazil. This is their first monorail system outside of China. http://www.it-times.de/news/byd-erhalt- ... en-128873/

But will this be the start of global expansion? Or will it all become unraveled due to BYD's lack of reliability on the cutting edge of technology?

[YNM]

They'll be good in a few years. But probably not them specifically.

[JamieLei]

BYD have had some buses operating in London for some years now. They won a contract to supply the whole of Central London routes 507 and 521 with an all electric fleet, teaming up with a British bus building company.

The thing that is difficult is not producing an electric bus per-se; it's rather producing one that meets the reliability and in-service requirements of highly demanding city operation, and offering the full package of aftercare, servicing, and collaboration with the local transport authority. Those are far more difficult things for up-start bus manufacturers to offer.