BYD Co., the Chinese automaker backed by billionaire Warren Buffett, and Daimler have set up a venture to develop electric cars in the world’s largest auto market.
Daimler, the world’s second-biggest manufacturer of luxury cars, and BYD will invest $88 million in the 50-50 partnership in China, the carmaker from Stuttgart, Germany, said in an e-mailed statement last week.
Daimler is pushing into electric-vehicle production in China to challenge luxury leader BMW, while the venture gives Shenzhen-based BYD access to Daimler’s technologies. Battery-powered electric vehicles may make up 3 percent of the more than 90 million cars sold globally by 2020, consulting company IHS Global Insight said.
read this news @ http://www.evhub.in/news/32
Monday 31 May 2010
Reva gets a recharge
The electric car brand Reva may soon have a new logo which will include the name of Mahindra. But will rebranding alone help in creating mass appeal?
It took him six years to create a saleable, environment-friendly electric car, and almost 10 more years to make it the world’s single-largest selling model. Today, it’s probably the world’s largest selling electric car with little over 3,500 units sold in the last one decade. Chetan Maini, a technocrat entrepreneur, however, did not break even.
His company invested more than $50 million (around Rs 225 crore) to manufacture EVs, but saw limited returns due to the high cost of manufacturing. Maini, thus, could not lend Reva – India’s first electric car – a touch of mass appeal. Many factors worked against him. India, for one, does not have enough charging stations. Besides, his company did not have enough money to keep on pushing the product merely on its environment-friendly features.
read this news @ http://www.evhub.in/news/31
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