The Chinese Are Coming

...and GM's Volt may already be in their rear-view mirror.  I'm just back from the Detroit Auto Show and while EVERYONE was talking about plug-in electric cars, and while GM is rushing to get the Volt out to consumers by next year, one company---BYD out of China--- already has them on showroom floors in its home country.

BYD (which stands for "Build Your Dreams") caught my eye awhile back when I heard that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had invested about $230 million dollars in the Shenzhen-based company through its subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy.  I had asked Buffett about it, and he told me it was all his co-hort Charlie Munger's idea. Charlie had heard about this outfit, looked into it, fell in love with it and called Warren to say, "Buy 20% of the company."  BYD would only allow BRK to buy a 10% stake so that's what they did.

I rushed over from our Fox Business set-up at the Ford platform to take a look.  The BYD car--called the "FD3M" (I know, needs a sexier name, hello?) are small and relatively non-descript (no obvious bling like US automakers like to have) but they're not austere either.  Most importantly, they'll go 60 miles on a single charge before a small gasoline engine kicks in, and when you need to re-charge, you just plug it into a wall socket.

That's NOTHING compared to what BYD is working feverishly on now: a fully electric car that'll go 200 miles (!) before it needs a charge.  I'll believe it when I see it, but check out the cars yourself in my Exclusive Fox Business interview with MidAmerican's David Sokol who gave us (and you!) the scoop, right from the floor of the Detroit Auto Show. You'll also meet the founder, Wang Chuanfu, who started the company with borrowed cash and 24 ultra-smart engineers.  Today BYD rakes in about $3 Billion a year in revenues. 

--Liz