Chinese electric giant BYD is bullish on Indian Mobility market
BYD is looking to expand its reach to India to beat the Indian players
BYD, Started in 1995 for making batteries for Motorola and Nokia. In 2003 BYD started making cars. Now BYD is leading in electric technology as well as in cars manufacturing. Right now BYD electric buses can be seen in many Indian cities. After Tesla it holds the second position in the largest electric car manufacturer in the world. Apart from EVs and energy products BYD also manufactures products like mobile’s outer shells (as BYD has much experience in stamping and also having the in-house facility for the same) and mobile screens. For Huawei, BYD make 60 million phone per year. Asus laptop’s some models are completely designed and manufactured by BYD.
BYD made 500,000 car last year. Half of them were completely gasoline cars. Half of them were electric and one-third of that was hybrid cars.
Company has expanded its electric vehicle business in 07 Conventional field and 4 Specialized field.
Electric vehicle market of BYD
Chinese electric mobility gaint BYD has sold more than 50,000 electric bussed all over the world till now. Within 16 years of operational time BYD has expanded its network in 06 continents. Support from the Chinese government and investor like Warren Baffet makes BYD strong. For your information Warren Buffet invested 280 million dollars to buy 10% shares of BYD in 2009.
BYD electric buses in India
Company has collaborated with Hyderabad based Olectra Greentech Ltd (India) to manufacture and sell its electric buses in Indian market. Olectra has done this partnership in 2016 to fulfill the order received by BEST Mumabi bus services. Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) had ordered 04 fully electric buses that time. Since then BYD and Olectra jointly started localizing the resources to build BYD electric bused in India. Currently BYD has its manufacturing facility in Hyderabad and company is also in talk to setup its second manufacturing plant in India. It exports eBuses to other countries also from India. Company is also planning to increase it electric bus production capacity from 2000 units to 5000 units per year.
“In the past few years, with the great support of Indian government and our local partners, BYD has realized the local design, R&D, manufacturing of electric buses in India and established battery manufacturing facilities here. We are also the first OEM in the country to export e-buses to overseas markets from India. Our pure electric buses have cemented their position as a market leader in the Indian e-bus segment” BYD India Managing Director Liu Xueliang said during the launch of electric MPVs in India in september 2019.
BYD-Olectra products in India
Currently there are 03 types of BYD’s electric buses are available in India- K6, K7 & K9. BYD also configures these buses as per the customer’s need. These all buses are build with Monocoque chassis in-wheel drive. Disk brakes provides the powerful braking and at the same time air-suspension makes these long buses convenient for travel. These buses comes with BYD’s patented battery technology which provides 250 km to 300 km of battery range. Re-generative braking enhances the battery range. Fast charging support helps to charge the battery 0 to 100% just in 2 to 3 hours only. So, for intercity or intercity transport these buses are well suited. For safety and to support in emergency situation these buses have technologies like- CCTV Surveillance, Passenger information safety, Medical Kit, Glass hammers, Fire extinguisher etc.
Currently more than 2000 electric buses are running on Indian roads. City like Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Rajkot, Goa, Kochi, Manali, Vijayawada, Surat Bangalore, Lucknow, Jaipur, Delhi and Chandigarh have choose to go with electric bus for their road transport. Tata, JBM-Solaris and BYD buses are operational in mentioned cities now.
BYD had launched T3 MPV and Minivan in India
In September’19 only BYD India had launched its first T3 MPV and Minivan in India. This looks like Nissan Evalia and Ashok Leyland Stile. It comes with all the latest features like 4.3 inch MID, built in audio system, Bluetooth connectivity, key-less entry, push button start, reverse parking and camera.
As per the current update BYD T3 has a 50.3 kWh Ni-Ca battery which powers a 95 PS and 180 Nm eMotor. T3 gets fully charge in 1.3 hr by using the 40 kW DC charger and it takes 7.6 hr from 6.6 kW AC charger. Company claims its range 300 km.
BYD is planning to sell 10,000 electric MPVs and gearing up to start the booking for its elctric MPV in India.
BYD in United State
It all started in May 2013 when BYD opened its first manufacturing facility in North America (Lancaster, California).
Indirectly BYD is backed by the China government as many of the Chinese authorities have equity shares in BYD. It is also said that China government is using city electric buses as their entry point to American electric vehicle market.
But BYD is still making maximum of parts in China. Like complete bus shell is manufactured in China and transported into America. Only final assembly is done locally there. It anyway increasing pressure on the local city electric bus manufacturers. How BYD is complying with the “Buy America” policy its matter of question now.
Recent news related to BYD Company Ltd.
BYD is aggressively growing its market in different countries and indirectly pushing European car manufacturer to come out from comfort zone of ICE/Hybrid vehicle. If still anyone don’t care then its sure that BYD will occupy major automotive markets of the world very soon. There are a lots of happening going on with BYD. Some companies are also showing interest for technological collaboration as well as market penetration. Here are the some recent news updates related to BYD which you must know-
BYD & Toyota Joint Venture
On 09th November-2019, BYD and Toyota Motor Corporation (Japan) announced their new partnership. A new company with 50-50 percent share will be formed by 2020 (probably) in China. The core work for this new organization will be to developed the future technologies of battery electric vehicles.
Largest ever single order received-December’19
BYD received largest ever single order of electric bus in Europe. Order is placed by Global Public Transport provider ‘Keolis’ (Nederland). This one single order was for 259 pure-electric buses.
Fortune/change-the-world-2019 top 10
BYD is one of the company which derived a major change in the electric vehicle market. With the help of its advance technologies in the filed of electric vehicles, energy and electronics gadgets it successfully put positive Environmental Impact in the world. ‘Fortune‘ has listed BYD under top 10 industry’s list of 2019.
Los Angeles department of transport (LADOT) orders 130 eBues from BYD- November’19
BYD announced that it has received the order to supply 130 fully electric bused to LADOT as part of its mission to electrify its all the fleet buses by 2030. These buses will be having range of 270km and 2.5 hr to 3 hr will be required to charge it completly.
My Words
BYD and Tesla like companies are now leading into the electric mobility world and its been decade these companies are proving there presence all over the world. If talk about the countries like US, then yes the very high quality products are required to penetrate that market but for India its matter of thinking. Currently there is no hard and fast norms who take cares about the quality and it makes easy to enter and capture markets in India. BYD definitely will hit the Indian electric vehicle/bus manufacturers like Tata, JBM, Mahindra & Gold-Stone. Year 2020 and 2021 will decide who is going to be king of electric bus market of India.
