What is Buffett’s BYD stake?
Chinese car maker BYD has just announced the launch in Los Angeles next year to boost its big plans for electric cars, which make one after another in Silicon Valley who can not help but talk of China's newtoshiba PA3285U-1BRS battery， toshiba PA3285U-2BRS battery， toshiba PA3285U-3BRS battery green technology why more powerful than the United States. However, in the development of environment-friendly technology, Chinese companies really an advantage?
A closer look at BYD will find that, at least for BYD is not the case. The company boasts of cars and batteries timely product portfolio ─ ─ specifically, that is, for new energy vehicles for the highest quality lithium batteries ─ ─ and said the company share price rose six-fold last year. However, BYD's battery was used 15 years ago, the old method of production, it is tradition to succeed in their cars in the car category is the most expensive, and its new energy vehicles are also facing obstacles.
With most Chinese manufacturers like BYD at low profit margins, volume of business doing so well. To date, more than the competition through the use of simple technology, BYD has been in the battery business success. Manipulator manufactured with the use of a unified standard battery Japanese rivals to compete on price, BYD back to the use of manual assembly line of cheap labor. A result, the quality can not be consistent, lower-cost batteries. According to the German Advisory Berg (RolandBerger) said that, despite BYD has never had reason to be proud of the battery recall, but it is because of battery failure and the destruction of 15% -30% of the battery, is far greater than the industry average ─ ─ 5% below.
In the production of mobile phone batteries, the quality varies only a small problem, because a cell phone as long as a battery, you have destroyed as long as the battery failed on the list. However, for electric vehicle battery pack, it becomes a big problem because the electric vehicle battery pack composed of hundreds of cells, each the size of a pack of cigarettes, all of the battery must be charged and discharged Folks. A car battery the best performance was the worst performance of the battery by one decision. BYD's labor-intensive production process for electric vehicle batteries can achieve the required uniform quality, which is still uncertain.
BYD has not yet introduced a hybrid car or electric vehicles, and has repeatedly missed the deadline listed. So far, BYD Auto sales also are a traditional gasoline engine cars, BYD's cars are toshiba PA3383U-1BRS battery， toshiba PA3395U-1BRS battery， toshiba PA3399U-1BAS batteryvery popular in China, is also not because of high technical content, but because it is very cheap. BYD claims that a year ago launched a much-vaunted hybrid vehicles F3DM. However, in any dealer's shop still do not see the car, leading industry watchers speculated that the car battery was not ready, "debut." This year, the all-electric e6 in the United States, and later postponed to 2011. However, e6 has not passed safety inspection in China, not to mention among the best in the United States tested. Right kind of vehicle to pre-evaluation is very caustic comments come: According to "CarandDriver" address, in the driveway before the garage opened the speed should be faster than this.
In any case, the influx of investment has been pouring in: BYD a year ago, attracted worldwide attention, which was directed by Warren Buffett (WarrenBuffett) MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company (MidAmericanEnergyHoldings) spent 230 million U.S. dollars to buy the BYD 10% of the shares. After BYD's share price shot up seven times, chairman of Wang Chuanfu pushed the company's list of billionaires in China, book assets up to 50 billion U.S. dollars. In the meantime, BYD promised to launch its own in the United States the first full-electric cars.
MidAmerican Energy to buy stake in BYD, when the media rushed to conclude: Buffett is betting that electric car industry. Buffett and the Sino-US energy executives are skillfully makes no attempt to dispel that impression. However, indications are that their interests lie elsewhere. China-US Energy operates the power grid, which uses renewable resources to generate electricity than any major U.S. public utility companies are big. MidAmerican Energy, a subsidiary of PacifiCorp in Oregon has recently built a 10 foot 40-foot containers the size of buildings, used to store BYD batteries.
The company is testing these batteries to store wind energy. BYD on the actual contribution of Buffett's portfolio may be only a low-cost, relatively low-tech, used to store wind and solar batteries, in order to use the no wind days and cloudy day.
Do not misunderstand, BYD is a good corporate operator, the chairman Wang Chuanfu reasonably be regarded as an outstanding entrepreneur. However, as with most Chinese companies, BYD real competitive advantage lies in its ability to commercialize technology products, thereby making more profile consumers can buy cheaper products. This feature is useful in ensuring that the new energy products quickly from the traditional carbon-based technologies gain market share in the hands, it will be crucial. However, no evidence that the Chinese enterprises in the new energy innovation race to run in front.