Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/653001
I DA U N I V E R S A L M a rc h -A p r i l 2 0 1 6 52 Battery-electric vehicles, as industry insiders know, are on the road to worldwide growth. is is evidenced by the announcement by New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio, relating that a cleaner, greener fl eet is yet another step toward necessary sustainability goals, including an 80 percent reduc- tion in all emissions by 2050. For example, BYD Company Ltd., (the Chinese electric car company, of which Warren Buff ett has a partial ownership stake), www.byd. com, Shenzhen, China, is growing in battery-electric vehicle manufacturer sales volumes. In a recent global EV ranking, BYD came in not only fi rst in global, single- model sales in October, with a total of 6,099 EV units sold, but October's rankings also represented an even greater milestone. It was the fi rst time BYD also ranked fi rst in accumulated global sales throughout an entire year – with a total of more than 43,073 NEVs sold, exceeding all American, Japanese, and European leaders to date. BYD is also a leader in the electric bu market. In fact, BYD will deliver nearly 6,000 electric buses in 2016, with about 300 zero-emission electric buses scheduled to be built in 2016 from BYD's North American factory. To support these progressive objectives, BYD revealed its Electric Vehicles Drive Worldwide Growth go-to-world-markets strategy at the 2015 Shanghai Auto Show with the "7+4 Strategy" to replace high-utility, fossil- fueled vehicles with clean, effi cient, even more reliable EVs for seven on-road vehicle markets. In further alignment with the BYD mission, several EV pilot fl eets have been deployed in the United States. Stanford University runs a fl eet of electric buses, Green Wheels is running BYD eTaxis in Chicago and another eTaxi fl eet is launching in New York City. With the new expansion of the BYD factories planned for the U.S., a wide-range of EV product off erings will be forthcoming including trucks, Warren Buff et (le ) and Bill Gates attended the EXPO.