World's First Plug-In Electric Car Goes On Sale Next Month -- in China

[NickB79]

This is a cross-post from the Environmental Board:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/11/worlds-first-plug-in-electric-car-china-byd-f3dm.php

"As Mike has reported previously, the F3DM -- which can be charged using a standard electrical outlet -- can switch between a fully electric mode and a hybrid one that uses both electricity and gasoline. BYD says the car can travel as far as 60 miles (100 km) after one charge in full-electric mode, or longer when also using its small gas tank. The all-electric range of the Chevrolet Volt is only 40 miles.

The F3DM, which has been in research and development for five years, is currently awaiting government approval, reports Caijing magazine. It is expected to be launched in 14 Chinese cities including Guangzhou and Shenzhen at a cost of about RMB 150,000, or around $22,000.

GM has said the Volt, which will be America's first plug-in hybrid, will be released in 2010 or possibly 2011 at a cost of $35,000."


It has more range than the Chevy Volt, they developed it faster than Chevy developed the Volt, and it costs MUCH less than the Volt.

God, the Big 3 suck when it comes to auto development.

[ClassWarrior]

And Detroit wonders why it's failing...

NGU.

[Bread and Circus]

1. Wow, it looks pretty decent in the pictures too...

Come on America...aren't we tired of getting our asses kicked?

[bluecollarcharlie]

6. Nope. We love to participate in the good ol' American pasttime........

.....of justifying our bad behavior and then blaming everyone else. "The big bad car companies and big oil companies did this to us!!!" Not "We did this to ourselves."
After 2.5 million people are out of a job, and they can't eat and provide for their families, what then? Can any of you people explain that?

[geomon666]

2. We can't let these bastards buy GM!

They might actually make it profitable and make us look bad! :sarcasm:

[bluecollarcharlie]

8. Well given how crappy and cheap most of the junk......

..from China actually is, the damn thing might just explode as soon as you plug it in.

[geomon666]

12. Nah, most likely...

The chemicals inside the battery will create a deadly gas when heated up, killing everything within a block.

[orleans]

20. we had an electric car

"Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, the Californian government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.
It was released on DVD to the home video market on November 14, 2006 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car

ironic that the answer is: general motors killed the electric car. (bet they wish they hadn't now)

[Bread and Circus]

3. Check this shit out.... (if you think this is a flash in the plan... be warned)

from the article

"We don't know much about BYD's technology, but one American probably does: Warren Buffet. In September the world's richest man invested $230 million in the automaker's parent company, BYD Co. (That day, BYD saw its shares jump more than 40 percent.)"

[ContinentalOp]

4. Not exactly the world's first plugin hybrid.

I guess they mean the first production model but plugin hybrids already exist. Also, the Volt may be the first American made plugin hybrid to hit the market but I really doubt that it will be the first plugin hybrid for sale in America. I'm sure Toyota will beat them.

[Juche]

5. LOL

Personally I like it when things like this happen. Hopefully it'll wake us up and make us get more serious about R&D and domestic investments.

However, part of the reason the BYD isn't being sold in the US is the emissions and safety are not high enough to sell it in the US market. So you have to consider that too.

[DRoseDARs]

7. "Plug-in" hybrids have been around since 1899.

Jesus Christ, two seconds on The Google and I'm already a better journalist than this moron.

The first was made by Lohner-Porsche, and could run both electric and hybrid. As electrical distribution wasn't standardized yet, it wasn't a standardized wall-plug but that isn't very relevant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid

[madrchsod]

9. treehugger should have google checked it`s headline

http://www.didik.com/ev_hist.htm

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-timeline.html

an electric car drove across the usa in the early 1900`s. the main problem they had was finding electrical outlets to plug in the charger.

[NickB79]

10. I think it meant that this is the first MASS-PRODUCED plug-in hybrid to be produced

Christ, out of 8 replies, 3 of them have been nit-picking the title of the paper with no comment at all on the article itself. Frankly, I don't care so much about the title's historical inaccuracies, but the impressive stats of the car itself.

[DRoseDARs]

15. This article exemplifies what's wrong with modern "journalism"...

If its author can't be bothered with basic fact-checking and isn't much good for anything other than stenographing whatever Chinese press release he's handed, well, you see the problem I would hope.

[anigbrowl]

19. When a finger points at the moon, only a fool stares at the finger.

Methinks the commercial implications are of greater importance than the slightly-inaccurate headline.

[anigbrowl]

18. Word.

[ThomWV]

11. And China is building coal fired dirty power plants to feed these electric cars

That is when they aren't burning gasoline.

[NickB79]

21. Unfortunately, that is true

2-3 new coal-fired plants per WEEK, as I recall.

The good thing about this car, though, is that the electricity can come from green energy sources like wind just as easily as from coal. Dirty coal plants could be replaced by wind farms, nuclear reactors, natural gas turbines and solar panels and not matter a bit to drivers of this vehicle, or vehicles like it (ie the Chevy Volt).

[Occam Bandage]

13. Yeah, but it probably stinks like the filthy Chinese or something.

God, the anti-China prejudice on this board is sickening.

[DRoseDARs]

16. Sooo, they've never violated Human rights, their environmental degradation doesn't exist...

...and they've never stolen trade secrets and technology from foreign companies (or governments) doing business with them? That's a bit like saying the US doesn't torture. You have to labor hard to twist the truth to make it a lie.

Unless you cite examples of racist bias against the Chinese, I doubt anyone here has anything against them as a people. The "prejudice" is against the behavior of their government. Kinda like how people don't have a problem with Israelis/Jews, it's the government that treats the Palestinians with such unfairness.

[Occam Bandage]

17. That is *exactly* what I said!

Such a stunning rebuttal to a point that I actually made in real life!

[excess_3]

14. joyous news

better than oil from the
middle east