There’s a new kid in Los Angeles, BYD. The Chinese battery and electric car manufacturer opened its California office today.
BYD says it will bring 150 green-collar engineering and management jobs to the city. The event highlight, however, is a deal between BYD and Hertz to provide airport shuttles to the rental agency. This could prove to be a key time for the company to move into the California electric car market.
Their opening is hot on the heels of the California government deciding to limit HOV lane benefits to electric cars in an effort to encourage greener transportation. BYD has a chance to get a jump on the electric car market considering the only EV’s available to consumers are the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Roadster.
Things may not all be bright though, BYD saw their profits drop by just over a third between 2009 and 2010 and lackluster sales in the first half of this year aren’t boding well either.
Their financial woes are largely due to poor car sales in China, where they failed to meet even half of their projected numbers.
Their push into the North American market could prove to be a good source of revenue, but BYD Vice-President Michael Austin admitted earlier this year to the Glendale News-Press that “the paradigm of driving a Chinese car in the U.S. is going to be hard to break.”
[Source: Auto Observer]
The post BYD Grand Opening Launches U.S. Operations appeared first on AutoGuide.com.
