BYD Introduces Electric E6 Crossover at Beijing Auto Show
21 April 2008
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The BYD E6 at the show. |
BYD Auto introduced its E6 electric vehicle (earlier post) at the Beijing International Auto Show. The battery-electric crossover—based on BYD’s F6 platform—will be produced commercially within the next one to two years.
Powered by a lithium-ion pack built with BYD’s own lithium-ion iron phosphate large format prismatic batteries, the E6 will have a maximum mileage of 300 km (186 miles) after being fully charged. BYD says the 5-seat vehicle will accelerate from zero to 100 km per hour in around 10 seconds and has a top speed of 160 kph (99 mph).
Charging at 220V will take overnight; the E6 can also take a fast charge that can bring the battery to 80% SOC in about 15 minutes.
A front traction motor delivers 450 Nm of torque, while a rear motor delivers 100 Nm of torque.
BYD had earlier developed the F3e prototype electric vehicle, with electric consumption of less than 12 kWh per 100km, and a range of more than 300 km under one charge. BYD projected the battery had a life of 2,000 cycles, for a lifetime range of about 600,000 km (373,000 miles)
BYD has already unveiled two plug-in hybrid models: the F6DM (Dual Mode, for EV and HEV) and the F3DM. (Earlier post.)
Nobody listened when I said BYD were going to do this two years ago!
Posted by: clett | 21 April 2008 at 06:30 AM
BYD appears to be more serious than any other consumer vehicle producer to produce zero emission vehicles. They are simultaneously developing 4 models! Two fully electric F3e and E6 and two serial PHEVs F6DM and F3DM. This is really ambitious for a small auto producer like BYD. GM is only doing one namely the Volt. GM still appears to play the wait and see game as if they still wonder whether they can get the batteries at the right cost for this vehicle to be sellable.
BYD have over 100000 employees their core competence is batteries where they are global number one in lithium cell phone batteries and NiCd batteries generally. They have done autos since 2003. Their announcements indicate that they can do a safe 2000 cycle lithium battery for only $300 per kWh. If it is true that they can launch these auto batteries at that cost they don’t need to spend much R&D to develop ICE because they will soon become obsolete for anything but genset applications. I assume that launch cost will be importantly higher than longer term production cost. My guess is that BYD expects to do these batteries for $300 per kWh at launch because it can explain why they are so aggressive on the development of electric and serial PHEVs. They certainly seem to be more than capable for large scale fabrication of these batteries. Also BYD previously announced that they expect to sell the F3DM later this year in China. http://www.byd.com/news/newsmore.asp?id=38&show=media
Now we will have to wait and see whether BYD is hype or real. It almost sounds too good to be true.
Posted by: Henrik | 21 April 2008 at 06:40 AM
"It almost sounds too good to be true."
Yeah, especially when we consider typical Chinese quality control. They maybe fine for their domestic "frontier" market*, but Chinese products often have issues when judged by western eyes. I'll wait for third party test reports.
*and highly appropriate, given China's newfound #1 world polluter status. Even if their cars aren't suitable for North America or Europe, they are for the third world and that's the area with fastest growing pollution. The E6 will be part of the solution.
Posted by: Hybrid fan | 21 April 2008 at 06:57 AM
Cars with Li-ion batteries are an urban myth. They are not sustainable:
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1180
Posted by: Jonas | 21 April 2008 at 08:48 AM
I admire BYD's "let's do it!" attitude. If you followed the story at the auto show, the CEO took a reporter around the show floor on electric power. It was not authorized, but he was so excited about showing his product he did it anyway. No harm done, only a few feathers ruffled.
This company has a great attitude about getting with the program. They make the batteries and they bought a car company so why not get the show on the road? Maybe they can only sell these in a few places. That is not a problem because if they work and last the word gets out and away they go.
Posted by: sjc | 21 April 2008 at 09:07 AM
Jonas,
I thought I was the only one who did some thinking as to can we all have Li-ion battery EVs. My calculations were back of the envelope type, not a white paper, but came to the same conclusion.
Posted by: allen_xl_z | 21 April 2008 at 09:37 AM
Jonas: that article you bookmarked was a debunking of previous papers talking about limits to the lithium supply. It clearly indicates that the resource base is much larger than critics of EVs have been claiming. Add to that the 230 Billion tons of the stuff in the oceans (which can be collected through selective absorption) and the resource base starts to look pretty sustainable. (not to mention the fact that you can recycle what you've already collected)
Posted by: Neil | 21 April 2008 at 11:00 AM
Jonas: Now that I check out your article I discover that you have linked to the original article by Tahil that was debunked by this article: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1434
Posted by: Neil | 21 April 2008 at 11:22 AM
Sorry I said GM only did one ‘zero emission’ vehicle the Volt. I simply forgot that they also work on the PHEV Saturn Vue due perhaps also in 2010. So they have two zero emission that we know they work on. Still it is disappointing they don’t appear to work on any pure electric as well.
Posted by: Henrik | 21 April 2008 at 01:20 PM
GM has 3 don't forget the ev1 they have everything they need for the ev1 to be reintroduced and now they can use Li-ion battery. Would be interesting if they came out with it again and said they car will work now with the new battery technology.
Posted by: tom | 21 April 2008 at 02:35 PM
Hybrid fan:
I wouldn't over-worry about the quality of the Lithium Batteries from BYD China. The majority will come from there anyway. I've been using a few for the last four years and they perform as well the Japanese originals. For some unknown reasons, they have about 50% more energy with the very same format.
At $300/Kwh, a battery pack for a PHEV-60 Km would cost between $3000 and $3500. With mass production, the cost should drop to less than $200 KWh within 3 to 4 years. At that price, PHEV-60+ Km (and 300+ Km BEVs) should not cost much more than ICE equivalent units by 2012.
The $30K to $40K GM Volt will have numerous competitors at much low price... unless our governments impose unreasonably high tariffs to please the high paying lobbies.
Chinese built PHEVs and BEVs will certainly meet European and North American (non-existing PHEV Standards?) and eventually (like the Japanese cars did) surpass ours in quality, durability, style, design, lower price etc . We have no GgR on quality. Our Big-3 products are not very good examples.
Posted by: Harvey D | 21 April 2008 at 03:02 PM
As for safety, BYD has a Corolla class model that claimed 4 out of 5 stars as tested in the Russian car safety body, which is equivalent to the EU standard.
Posted by: thomas | 21 April 2008 at 04:25 PM
They could produce and EV Volt if the batteries were really cheap. I know it is not practical, but it would be interesting to have a modular design. Buy an EV and you can upgrade it to a series hybrid if needed. Or buy a PHEV where you can add more batteries and remove the genset if you wanted to go EV.
Posted by: sjc | 21 April 2008 at 05:59 PM
Nice indeed, but I am kind of skeptical, 200miles requires 40 to 50Kwhrs of battery ~ 400/500Kg, GM has hard time to get 18KWhrs battery and the price is already a big issue, so how come these guys can claim such product??
Posted by: Treehugger | 21 April 2008 at 08:25 PM
Sorry I was wrong, the volts needs 18Khws for 40 miles means you need 5 * 18 = 90KWhrs ~ 900kg of battery, I am even more skeptical...
Posted by: Treehugger | 21 April 2008 at 08:39 PM
@Treehugger,
The Volt uses 100 Wh/kg batteries and only allows 50% depth of discharge, so has total 16 kWh of which 8 kWh is used in a pack weighing 160 kg.
The BYD car probably uses deeper cycling, say 80%. At 100 Wh/kg it would require 37 kWh to achieve 186 mile range, or 47 kWh to keep to 80% cycling limits. This would weigh 470 kg which does sound heavy but remember the lack of engine/transmission/coolant circuit/radiator/exhaust/ cat etc etc. would probably reduce that weight penalty by 200 kg or so.
Posted by: clett | 22 April 2008 at 02:16 AM
BYD can do it because they make the batteries. We will see in the next few years if people will flock to EVs by the millions. Some early adopters will, but will the second wave of more cautious buyers jump in...stay tuned.
Posted by: sjc | 22 April 2008 at 08:21 AM
This is a huge wake-up call for all major automakers. The Chinese have it right. If you're going to build electrical cars, you need to consolidate battery manufacturing.
Hopefully, other automakers will be scared enough of BYD to begin major efforts to compete. In this instance, we may see more, not less, electric vehicles hitting the market in the short term.
Cheers to BYD for pushing the envelope!
Posted by: Robert Marston | 22 April 2008 at 02:36 PM
Nissan has battery making capability.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/nissan-tests-ne.html#more
That would explain why they are in the EV game and why they may do well at it. I think GM made a bet during the EV1 period with Ovonics. Now that things have moved along, they have to do what they can. This shows me management asleep at the wheel..again.
Posted by: sjc | 22 April 2008 at 03:01 PM
Tataindica
Posted by: | 27 August 2008 at 07:26 AM
I think these type of inventions with li-ion cells would largely reduce pollution and that would be the main reason they would come into use.if the governments
would encourage these cars leaving apart the power of petrolium countries people would achieve much greener atmosphere which would result in a better future for the coming generations.I do always have one doubt on my mind. why do these type of cars do not come into use much easily comparitive to the petrol cars, which people even buy a new brand or efford for a much costlier ones.As the country is china,the best in marketing at this moment i expect and wish the car to come into the market in the least possible time and play a major role to move towards a greener world.
Posted by: vamsi | 20 January 2009 at 12:14 AM
I have been really waiting for this car,this would be a revolution in the history of the cars, this might be the major step for prevention of pollution which would save mother earth.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 02 June 2009 at 07:40 AM