BYD Toots Electric Horn in Shenzhen 比亚迪在深圳奏响电动汽车号角

By newsdoug on July 26, 2011

In some ways you have to admire BYD (HKEx: 1211; Shenzhen: 002594), the Warren Buffett-backed car maker, for its ability to stay on message despite a rapid fall from grace that will likely see it post its first quarterly loss in a long time in the second quarter. (previous post) Despite all its setbacks, including a BYD's fraying electric dream crash that has seen its Hong Kong-listed shares lose about two-thirds of their value from a 52-week high, the company is continuing to focus on its dreams of becoming the world’s first company to make serious money from electric vehicles, as evidenced by its latest announcement that it is providing the world’s biggest EV fleet to its hometown of Shenzhen. (company announcement) At first glance the numbers look impressive: a new series of agreements have seen BYD provide Shenzhen with a fleet of 200 electric buses and 300 electric taxis. But further reading makes the numbers a little less noteworthy, as it becomes clear that a portion of these vehicles may only stay in use during the upcoming Universiade Games, and also that many pieces of this tie-up were previously announced. I’ve said before that BYD needs to get back to basics and design some good traditional gas-consuming cars that people want to buy if it wants to get back on the right track and return to profitability anytime soon. Its electric vehicle vision may indeed work out in the end, especially with the strong support it’s getting from Shenzhen, though even in this area I would only give it a 50 percent chance of success. But if it doesn’t return to the right track soon, it could soon lose support from Buffett, and could potentially even end up out of the car business completely before its electric dreams ever have time to become reality.

Bottom line: BYD is again showing off its strong support from Shenzhen in achieving its electric car dreams, but it may run out of gas before those dreams have a chance to succeed.

在某种程度上，你不得不对比亚迪<002594.SZ> <1211.HK>坚持不懈的精神表示钦佩，尽管其第二季度很可能出现长时间以来的首次季度亏损。尽管比亚迪遭遇了种种挫折，包括其香港股价较52周高点缩水约三分之二，但公司仍致力於成为世界上首家实现电动车盈利公司的梦想，这也可以从比亚迪刚刚发布的声明中可见一斑，比亚迪近日宣布，已与深圳各大公交运营机构正式签署合同，向其提供新能源汽车租赁服务。乍一看，数字确实可观。比亚迪将提供200辆电动大巴以及300辆电动出租车。但仔细研读後发现这也没什麽大不了的，因为很明显，这些汽车中有部分可能只会在即将到来的大运会期间使用，而且很多相关合作项目之前曾有宣布。我之前曾说过，如果比亚迪想重回正轨并尽快恢复盈利，它需要回到基础的东西上，设计出一些人们愿意购买的高质量传统汽车。比亚迪的电动汽车梦想或许最终会实现，特别是获得了深圳方面的大力支持，不过我认为比亚迪的成功机率只有50%。但如果比亚迪不能尽快回到正轨，它可能很快会失去巴菲特的支持，甚至在其电动汽车梦还未实现之前，便可能被完全淘汰出汽车市场。

一句话：比亚迪再次向公众表明其在实现电动车梦想方面获得了深圳方面的大力支持，但在其梦想有机会实现前，比亚迪或许已经动力不足了。