Chinese electric car maker upbeat despite gloomy sales

Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 September 2009 08.49 BST
It has drawn the attention of billionaire investor Warren Buffett and been named as a potential saviour of the world's car industry. But Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD is facing a struggle to live up to expectations, after it emerged that the company has sold fewer than 100 of its landmark plug-in cars in the past nine months.
The news of the low sales figures deals a serious blow to the company, which launched the F3DM model to much fanfare last December. At the time it was heralded as the world's first mass-produced plug-in hybrid car, a saloon with a battery that can see it travel up to 80 miles before the petrol engine kicks in.
But despite positive press and public targets ranging between 3,000 and 4,000 cars for 2009, reports suggest that the company has shifted just a fraction of the £13,000 vehicles it had planned to sell.
In an interview with Reuters at the Frankfurt Motor Show, one senior executive said that the company remained optimistic.
"The Chinese government supports 10 cities to each have 1,000 electric vehicles for public transportation," said Henry Li, general manager of the company's exports. "With this we already have a quite high demand for electric vehicles... but there is a lot of competition, so it is hard to say how many we can actually get."
However, the news places even more pressure on BYD's forthcoming E6 model - still under development at the company's headquarters in Shenzen and due to go on sale later this year.
BYD - the name stands for Build Your Dreams - started out as a manufacturer of rechargeable batteries before moving into the electric car business in 2003. The prospects for growth in the electric vehicle market and support from the government has helped propel the company forward, including a significant investment of $230m from US billionaire Warren Buffet.
The company has been bullish about its plans, suggesting that China's need to ditch polluting petrol vehicles in favour of clean transport will help the market for electric vehicles grow rapidly.
Earlier this year executives said they planned to sell 700,000 cars in 2010 - almost all of them inside China - and have longer term projections that will see BYD eclipse the world's largest car manufacturer, Toyota, in just a few years. The company has plans to launch in the US by the end of next year, and in Europe by 2011.
Scott Laprise, an industry analyst with investment brokers CLSA, told the Associated Press that such high expectations were a part of BYD's strategy to woo customers.
"It's all about advertising and brand building," he said. "That's going to be massive publicity. Don't sell anyone cars. Just let the world know you are the world leaders and then see what happens."