BYD has been given a lot of press with its hybrids, HEV and electric vehicles, EVs manufacturing in China. Here is a little more behind the scenes from a company that his a short history with an impressive growth.
The gist, we’ve covered BYD‘s cars a few times here and the company is becoming a bigger player EVs and HEVs. But who and what is BYD?
According to the Financial Times, the man behind BYD is Wang Chuanfu, who founded the company that was given a 10% stake by Warren Buffett’s Mid American Energy Holding, which jolted the Hong Kong stock market and made BYD’s shares raise by by 42%. BYD was already a global leader in rechargeable battery technology and intends on picking up where Western companies have left the industry.
BYD’s future? According to Mr Wang, the goal is to make BYD the world’s largest car company by 2025, when he says: “For new-energy cars, we believe we can become the global leader… From the technology standpoint, 10 years should be enough.” A lofty goal since BYD plans to take advantage of the of a West gone haywire, at a standstill, locked in powerful politco-financial turmoils. This leaves an opportunity for Asia to as the relevant players of tomorrow’s electronic fields.
Truth In Numbers. What China has that the West has lost over decades is an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and a better life. And Mr Wang believes Chinese companies are smarter and work harder than their western competitors with 5 million highly ambitious graduates leaving Chinese universities every year, “more than the population of some European countries”, he says. That, plus the fact that they work for lower salaries than their western or Japanese competitors makes China a formidable powerhouse.
The Proof. In 13 years, BYD went from no capital, unable to import an automated battery production line from Japan to today, the world’s largest producer of mobile phone batteries, with 30% of the market, being the second-largest producer of rechargeable batteries to power electronic goods. All in 13 years.
Knowing all this, it makes sense why investors, such as Warren Buffett would want to invest in a company set to take the world over. While most of Europe and the U.S. recovers from poorly managed companies, dragging down an entire global economy, smaller players have risen to position themselves as tomorrow’s big players. What is disconcerting to see is that today’s Western top well fed players have little incentives to be competitive. What is a little more worrisome is that tomorrow’s generation will have to contend with a different global power landscape, unless the West wakes up from its slumber and start regaining the ever increasing technology race.