Electric cars are the future - some advantages:

I know that it's controversially discussed, but in my eyes nothing will stop the victory of electric cars in the long run.
As this is no article about electromobility in general, but about the car producing company BYD, I will only name a short list of some advantages of electric cars:

Whereas fossil energy sources will be exhausted sooner or later, the accumulators of electric cars can loaded with electricity gained from the energy of sources like the sun or wind power which will exist as long as humans are living on earth.
Even if nowadays still a part of the electricity for their batteries is produced in pollutive power plants, in the cities where the cars are used (and where most humans are living) they don't pollute the air. And apart from that it is more easy to filter the exhaust gases of a few power plants than of millions of cars.
Electric cars consist of much less single parts: whereas the engine of a conventional car is composed of about 1400 parts, an electric engine has only about 210 parts^[1] (just as an example no exhaust pipe is needed anymore). The consequences are lower maintenance charges and a longer lifespan of the electric motor.
The level of efficiency of electric cars is higher, but the energy expenditure lower. Also their speedup is very good.
Finally their noise emissions are clearly lower.

I will not deny that so far there is still one big disadvantage: the range. However in my opinion it will be only a matter of (a not so long) time until that is solved as well. Future will tell us if I am right or wrong. :)
As soon as more batteries are fabricated in mass production, also their prices will decrease significantly.

BYD (Build Your Dreams)

If I listen people talk about electric cars most of the time I hear names like Tesla or maybe also Renault, Nissan or other well known marques.

But - be honest - did you know that actually BYD sold the biggest number of electric cars worldwide in 2016?^[2]2 To be fair I have to say that concerning the revenues Tesla is still ahead because their cars are more expensive.

BYD was founded in 1995 by the chemist Wang Chuanfu in Shenzhen. At the beginning the company produced rechargeable batteries, for example for mobile phones.
Since 2003 the production of cars begun and from about 2010 BYD focuses on producing electric cars.^[3]
Nowadays the company has nearly 180000 employees^[4] and is divided in the sectors "IT", "Energy", "Auto", "PV" and "Lighting".

A famous investor

Apart from that it's remarkable that already in 2008 Warren Buffet (who normally invests rather conservative) recognized the potential of the Chinese car maker and purchased nearly 10 % of its shares.^[5] Not long ago also Samsung acquired 52.3 million BYD shares.^[6]
(By the way I own shares of that company as well, but I guess probably not quite as many as Warren Buffet ... ;-)

What are the reasons for the success of BYD?

There are many:

Opposite to most of the competitors BYD develops and produces its own batteries (for example Tesla produces its batteries with help of Panasonic^[7]).
It is well know that Tesla is about to build a huge battery producing Gigafactory - mass production will lead to lower prices. However BYD is planning exactly the same.^[8]
The technology of their batteries is really amazing. BYD is utilizing self-developed LiFePO₄ batteries (though they are not the only company producing this battery type). Advantages of these kind of batteries are for example that they are very safe (low risk of explosion), have a long cycle life, no memory effect, are maintenance free and environment-friendly (as they don't contain heavy metals).^[9]
While other car manufacturers like for example the German BMW just recently started to build electric cars, BYD has already quite a lot of experiences and their cars have proven to be reliable. For example the BYD e6 is used by cab companies since many years and the newest version has a range of up to 400 km (about 250 miles).^[10] In addition the battery should last 4000 charge cycles and can be fully reloaded within two hours (according to BYD)^[11]
One interesting feature of the BYD e6 is that it can not only "consume" electricity, but also recharge other cars whose battery got empty.
Apart from cars BYD is producing electric buses (even double-decker^[12]), different kinds of trucks^[13] and even forklifts.^[14] BYD points out that one of its electric buses already drove from Bogota to Medellin with one single battery charge.^[15]
Apart from that BYD produces high quality solar panels, also outside of China^[16] and electricity storages one can combine at home with ones solar power system.^[17]
If finally you ask me who produces the biggest electricity storage worldwide ... I guess you will not surprised anymore: it is BYD as well. :-) ^[18]

But how do the BYD cars look like?

Of course not as good as a Tesla! :)

BYD Tang

Von Navigator84 - Eigenes Werk, CC-BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50804253

BYD e6

Source (by Warren Whyte)

BYD Qin

Von El monty - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28252869

At least BYD makes some efforts to improve the appearance of its vehicles in future: it hired a former design chief for Audi, Wolfgang Egger.^[19]
Apart from that Leonardo DiCaprio became new "Brand Ambassador" for BYD.^[20]

Slow reaction in Germany

Whereas China and the USA have two very strong electric car companies already, so far in Germany (my country) things develop rather slowly. Companies like VW (Volkswagen), BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke AG) or Daimler-Benz had so much success with conventional cars in the past that they hesitated rather long to switch to a completely new technology were "the pack was reshuffled". Actually Daimler-Benz is involved in a joint venture with BYD. Together they created a car called Denza.^[21] But it has to be said that the key components, engine and battery stem from BYD ...

For these readers who understand German I recommend to watch the very interesting documentation "Fährt Auto Deutschland vor die Wand?".^[22]

Sources:

http://www.umweltbrief.org/neu/html/Elektroautos_Autoindustrie.html
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/tesla-byd-jockey-for-electric-car-world-domination
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD
http://www.byd.com/aboutus/profile.html
http://www.investopedia.com/news/berkshire-hathawaybacked-byd-forecasts-91-profit-brka/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-21/samsung-buys-449-million-stake-in-buffett-backed-carmaker-byd
https://electrek.co/2016/07/29/tesla-gigafactory-panasonics-machine-battery-cell/
https://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/23/byd-gigafactory-to-be-worlds-2nd-battery-gigafactory/
http://www-scf.usc.edu/~rzhao/LFP_study.pdf
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/02/24/byd-e6-selected-for-south-east-asias-largest-all-electric-taxi-fleet/
https://fenecon.de/blog/neues-von-fenecon-1/post/elektroautos-von-byd-fenecon-startet-verkauf-des-e6-26
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/world-s-first-electric-double-decker-bus-london-a6934646.html
https://motiondigest.com/2016/08/30/byd-all-electric-sanitation-truck-with-400km-range-or-8-hrs-operations/
http://warehousenews.co.uk/2016/04/byd-changing-the-game-is-this-a-new-dawn-for-the-forklift-battery/
http://www.byd.com/news/news-328.html
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/08/22/byd-agrees-new-brazilian-solar-pv-facility/
http://www.byd.com/energy/download/DESS/English-DESS%20Brochure_2013_02_05.pdf
http://www.emobilserver.de/elektro-magazin/emobil-nachrichten/archiv/2014/okt/byd-bringt-weltgroessten-batteriespeicher-ans-netz-speicherumfang-entspricht-etwa-2000-elektro-autos.html
http://www.leblogauto.com/2016/11/wolfgang-egger-arrive-chez-byd.html
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/02/06/leonardo-dicaprio-new-brand-ambassador-china-byds-energy-vehicles/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denza

BYD - the unknown electromobility giant