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【中国的希望在哪里?】巴菲特和中国土产 - 比亚迪【财富中国】

 巴菲特去年入股中国电子产品专业代工集团比亚迪却打破惯例,投资触角伸入自己不甚瞭解的电动车和电池技术领域。

 要出手投资前,一定会先听听最佳拍档孟格(Charlie Munger)的意见。如果孟格说:“这真是个很蠢的想法”,代表他百分之百同意。如果他说:“这是我听过最笨的主意”,代表他认为投资一半就好。

  如果孟格说,让巴菲特决定就好,那代表他根本不赞成该计画。

  不过谈到比亚迪时,孟格不寻常地讚美其创办人王传福。他对财星杂志(Fourtune)记者说:“这傢伙就像爱迪生和威尔许的综合体。他像爱迪生一样会解决技术问题,像威尔许一样会完成该做的事。没见过像这样的人。”

  巴菲特找中美能源控股公司(MidAmerican Energy)执行长索科尔(David Sokol),实地到中国走一趟,看看比亚迪的情况。

  他们的结论是:比亚迪有机会成为全球最大汽车制造商,主要是靠销售电动车,同时也有潜力成为全球太阳能产业龙头。去年9月底,波克夏以2.3亿美元收购比亚迪近10%股权。

  入股比亚迪,等于打破巴菲特自己的投资守则。巴菲特坦承:“我一点也不懂手机或电池,也不知道汽车怎么动的。”但他说,孟格和索科尔很聪明,他们真的了解这些东西。而且比亚迪这14年来的成就,各界有目共睹。

  摩根大通证券公司在给客户的报告中指出,巴菲特之所以会看上比亚迪,绝对是和电动车与电池技术有关。索科尔就强调,比亚迪所拥有的快速充电与放电技术,可说具有“改变游戏规则”的特色,他也相信这个技术能够运用在包括电力储存等其他应用上。

  比亚迪经营团队的执行力、研发和商业化能力,也让索科尔和巴菲特给予高度作者:Todd Woody肯定。巴菲特问王传福:比亚迪何以能远远甩开竞争对手?王传福回答,因为比亚迪是建立在技术知识上。 ’

中国电动汽车制造商比亚迪(BYD)的一位关键投资者于本周二表示,该公司今年将推出充电一次可行驶250英里的电动汽车,并打算将该车引入美国。

在《财富》杂志于加利福尼亚州南部举行的头脑风暴绿色会议上,LL Investment Partners公司创始人李禄(Li Lu)表示:“我们希望在美国引入该车。”

据《财富》特约编辑马克•昆瑟(Mark Gunther)称,李禄位于加州帕萨迪娜的公司拥有电动汽车制造公司比亚迪2.5%的股份,并促成了沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)投资比亚迪。

在关于电动汽车电池的小组讨论上,李禄称比亚迪能够制造充电一次可行驶300至400英里的电池。他说道:“我们现在能制造出300英里蓄电池,但其十分笨重,会占据汽车的空间。问题在于弄清消费者真实的需要。”

李禄指出,假如比亚迪进军美国市场,该公司将建造汽车工厂。“当我们进军美国,我们将就地制造。”

中国电动汽车制造商瞄准美国

http://www.fortunechina.com/first/content/2009-04/23/content_17963.htm

————-
Chinese electric carmaker eyes U.S.

www.fortunechina.com 2009年04月23日

By Todd Woody

Chinese electric carmaker BYD will put an electric car on the road this year that goes 250 miles on a charge and intends to bring the vehicle to the United States, a key investor in the company said Tuesday.

“We want to introduce the car in the U.S., ” said Li Lu, founder of LL Investment Partners at Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm Green conference in Southern California.

His Pasadena, Calif.-ba<x>sed firm owns 2.5% of BYD and was instrumental in getting Warren Buffett to invest in the electric car company, according to Fortune contributing editor Mark Gunther. (Read Gunther’s recent Fortune cover story on BYD here.)

During a panel discussion on electric car batteries, Lu said BYD could produce a battery that went 300 to 400 miles on a charge. “We can do a 300-mile battery today,” he said. “But it’s really heavy stuff, cuts into the space of the car. It’s a matter of what the consumer really needs.”

If BYD does move into the U.S., it will also build auto factories, Lu noted. “When we come to this country, we will do our manufacturing here.”

巴菲特不仅看到了未来一代的汽车,实际上他正坐在司机座位上。为什么他会投资给一个不起眼的中国电动车公司并相信这家公司的首席执行官?不是开玩笑-这个CEO敢喝下自己充电电池的电池液。

  4月27日出版最新一期《财富》杂志将刊登Marc Gunther“巴菲特掌舵”一文,讲述了巴菲特为何数次违反了自己的投资原则、投资比亚迪的前因后果。

  文章称,目前,比亚迪在美国的业务还不大。大约20个人在伊利诺伊州靠近摩托罗拉公司的Elk Grove村负责销售和营销工作,另外20人在旧金山靠近苹果公司的地方工作。比亚迪生产大约80%的摩托罗拉RAZR手机、iPod和iPhone手机和一些低价电脑的电池。在过去5年,年增长率大约是45%,2008年营收达到40亿美元。

  在收购比亚迪股份一事上,巴菲特数次违反了自己的投资原则。“我对手机或者电池一窍不通,”他坦承:“我也不懂得汽车原理。”但他补充说,“查理·芒格和索科尔都是聪明的家伙,他们理解这些。而且毫无疑问,1995年以来比亚迪取得的成就确实了不起”。
  
巴菲特坐在比亚迪E6车里。这辆车是直接从底特律车展上开到Omaha的。

  另外一件事令他更加确认这项投资。伯克希尔哈撒韦公司最初试图收购比亚迪25%的股份,但王传福不同意,他想要的是和巴菲特合作,来加强他自己的品牌并打开美国市场。王传福不愿意卖出超过10%的股份。“这是个不想卖出自己公司的人,”巴菲特说:“这是个好现象。”

  一直关注轻捷能源业发展的Marc Gunthe飞往中国采访王传福。在比亚迪新总部,他首先了参观了该公司的“博物馆”,然后公司的人陪同他进入会议室。43岁的王传福和Gunthe相对而坐,他们通过翻译交流。

  王传福开始创建亚迪时理想并不远大—-从日本主导的电池市场分一杯羹。“从日本进口的电池非常昂贵,”王传福说:“有进口税,和交货时间也长。”他研究了索尼和三洋的专利并把电池拆开了解他们的工作原理。这是一个“充满尝试和错误的过程,”王传福说。(索尼和三洋后来起诉比亚迪侵犯了其专利,但没能胜诉)

  当王传福决定用熟练工人代替机械流水线后,比亚迪迎来大突破。在日本,使用机械臂操作组装的流水线一条费用高达10万美元甚至更多,而比亚迪通过雇佣数百名,甚至上千名熟练工人工组装电池把成本降低一半。

  “ 当第一次参观比亚迪工厂时,我感到非常震惊,”美林证券驻香港的技术分析师丹尼尔·金说。他曾经参观过日本和韩国的全自动化生产线。“而(比亚迪)是一个完全不同的商业模式”他说。为了控制质量,比亚迪把每一项工作分解成基本的任务单元并实施严格的检验规程。根据哈佛商学院对比亚迪的个案研究,到2002 年,在全部三个充电电池技术领域(锂离子电池,镍镉和镍氢电池),比亚迪已成为中国最大、全球前四大制造商之一。

  王传福强调,和索尼和三洋不同的是,比亚迪从未因质量问题召回其生产的电池。

  比亚迪汽车有5000名汽车工程师和同等数量的电池工程师,全部工程师都通过了公司的培训项目(淘汰率40%),绝大多数人都生活在深圳总部的15栋有18 层高的黄色公寓楼里。资历浅的工程师算上福利一个月收入不到600美元。王说,全部的工程师毕业于中国最好的大学,“他们都是出类拔萃的……他们都工作刻苦,可以和任何人竞争”。

  “基本上,这些人一星期七天,每天24小时做的就是,呼吸,吃饭,思考,工作,”一名美国高管在研究比亚迪的工作模式后发出感言。

  王传福通常每天工作到晚上11时或午夜,每星期上班5或6天。“在中国,我们这一代人是工作第一,生活第二,”王说。他的妻子承担着养育两个孩子的责任。

  同绝大多数汽车制造商不同,比亚迪自己制造汽车的几乎全部配件—-不仅是车体、引擎,还有空调,灯具,安全带,安全气囊,以及电子配件。“这让其他人难以同我们竞争,”王说:“如果是在日本和美国,这么做我们承担不起。”

  至于积累财富?“我不感兴趣,”王传福说。他确实没有非常奢华的生活方式。2008年,他的收入是26.5万美元,他和其他工程师一样,住在比亚迪公寓楼中。他唯一的奢侈品拥有是一辆奔驰和雷克萨斯汽车,这两辆车存在的一个实际目的是:他可以把发动机拆下来,研究其工作原理。在美国访问期间,他曾经试图拆下载着他到处走走的一辆丰田车的座椅来研究下车的结构。比亚迪上市后,王传福做了一项非同寻常的决定:他把自己手上的大约15%股份,分发给比亚迪公司里大约20位高管和工程师。他仍然拥有大约28%的股份,价值约10亿美元。

  公司本身也很节俭。直到最近,管理层出差一直搭乘经济舱。比亚迪一位高管对Marc Gunthe说,福特08年亏损数十亿美元,却仍在巴黎汽车展期间,在盛大的乔治五世酒店举办豪华派对,他对此感到非常震惊。相比之下,比亚迪高层上次前往底特律汽车展时,他们租住的是郊区的民房,以节省住酒店的开支。

  注意控制成本使得比亚迪在各个业务领域都能赚钱。尽管规模很小,但任何一个比亚迪的业务部门—-电池、手机配件以及汽车—-在2008年都是盈利的。总体而言,净利润约为1.87亿美元。在香港交易所上市的比亚迪目前的市值约为38亿美元。比福特汽车4月初的70亿市值要小,但超过通用汽车公司(13亿美元)。

  2008年夏天,大卫·索科尔参观比亚迪时,王传福带他到一个电池工厂并解释说,比亚迪希望自己制造的电池可以100%回收利用。为此,该公司已开发出一种无毒电解质液。为了强调这一点,王把电池液倒进玻璃杯中喝下,“不好喝,”他说,然后让索科尔也尝一尝。

  索科尔礼貌的拒绝。但他得到了清楚的讯息。“王的工作焦点是,我们是否能帮助解决环境问题,我们的技术不能再创造新的环境问题,”索科尔说。

  现在最大的问题是制造成本昂贵,其中最大的单一成本是电池。生产安全、可靠、持久并能快速充电的汽车电池是一项复杂和昂贵的事业。比亚迪声称已经在磷酸铁锂离子电池技术方面取得突破性进展,但目前还没有人能证实所称确实。

  有人怀疑说,比亚迪不可能制造出比竞争对手性能更强大、价格又更便宜的电池。新加坡野村证券公司的分析师Chitra Gopal一直关注比亚迪的进展。他说,比亚迪投注“用全新的技术,实现大规模生产以降低成本的尝试迄今还没有结果。”

  电动车网站“EV世界”的出版商和主编威廉·摩尔指出:比亚迪“需要说服别人的是,他们销售的是一种可靠、耐用、高质量的汽车”。

  即使推崇者也承认,现在比亚迪的电动汽还有很多亟需提高改进的地方。“他们的汽车性能远远落后于丰田,这是肯定的,”索科尔坦言。

  比亚迪尚未决定是否将大举进入美国市场。现在是比亚迪董事会一员的索科尔说,比亚迪可能发展成为成全球车厂的电池供应商。但一些美国人却急于同比亚迪做生意。《财富》杂志访问比亚迪公司的第二天,俄勒冈州州长Ted Kulongoski抵达比亚迪,试驾了电动车后,并敦请公司通过波特兰港把电动车进口美国。

  另外,王传福需要集中精力建立一个更强有力的管理团队,以推动公司向前发展。“好消息是,他才42岁,”索科尔说:“坏消息是,他是整个组织和运转的幕后灵魂。他需要更迅速的建立起一个管理团队,我想他知道这些。”08年冬天,索科尔领着王传福参观了美国。行程从底特律开始,在当地的车展上比亚迪汽车人气十足、备受关注,在西海岸结束行程前,王传福第一次见到查理·芒格。

  “比亚迪为什么会遥遥领先?”巴菲特通过翻译问王传福。“我们公司是懂行的人在做事,”王回答说。巴菲特又问比亚迪将如何保持其领先优势。“我们永远,永远不会停下休息,”王说。

  巴菲特可能并不了解电池或汽车,也不懂中国话。但是,发动汽车是怎么回事、意味着什么,是不需要翻译的。

———–
Buffett’s Chinese electric car company

If you think the American auto industry is in trouble now, just wait until the Chinese learn how to make great cars. And if you doubt that they will learn, check out my cover story about BYD in the new issue of FORTUNE, headed to subscribers and newsstands this week.

BYD is an amazing company. It was started by a chemist and government researcher named Wang Chuan-Fu in 1995 (same year as Yahoo) to make rechargeable batteries, which it learned to do very well. Within a few years, BYD’s batteries were cheaper and just as reliable as those made by industry giants ony and Sanyo. Then Mr. Wang, as he’s known, got into the automobile business by buying a failing state-owned carmaker. BYD’s conventional gas-powered cars are selling well these days in China, and his electric plug-in electric model looks like it will come to market with a longer range and a lower sticker price than the new Toyota Prius much-hyped Chevy Volt. As if that were not enough, I’m hearing now that BYD is on the verge of a breakthrough in the solar power business and that the company has big plans to make rechargeable batteries at a utility scale to store energy from intermittent, renewable sources like wind and solar. Today, BYD employes 130,000 people in 11 factories, either in China and one each in India, Hungary and Rumania.

That track record—and that potential—is what persuaded Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, to buy 10% of BYD last fall for $230 million. This could turn out to be one of Buffett’s very best deals. Here’s what Charlie Munger, Buffett’s longtime friend and the vice chairman of Berkshire, told me about Mr. Wang:

This guy is a com-bination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch—something like Edison in solving technical problems, and something like Welch in getting done what he needs to do. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Munger, by the way, is a famous curmudgeon, who usually comes up with all kinds of reasons why Buffett’s latest investment idea won’t pan out. Not so this time around.

The other key player in the Berkshire-BYD deal is David Sokol, the chairman of MidAmerican Energy, a utility company owned by Berkshire and an interesting guy in his own right. (I’m going to blog about Sokol later this week—he is a big believer in renewable energy.) Sokol did most of the due diligence on BYD for Berkshire, and he now sits on the BYD board. He, too, was very impressed with Mr. Wang.

Here are three reasons why I think BYD will become an important company in the not too distant future.

1. BYD’s engineering prowess. Depending on whether or not you count trainees, BYD employs between 10,000 and 17,000 engineers and it’s constantly recruiting the best graduates from China’s engineering and technical schools. The Shenzhen manufacturing region, where the company is headquartered, is known for cheap unskilled labor, but BYD’s competitive advantage derives from its cheap skilled labor. “They are the top of the top,” Mr. Wang told me, when I visited BYD last year. This is a company that has already invented new processes (the way it makes batteries) and products (the battery in its electric car) and it is focused on innovation. Innovation appears to be Mr. Wang’s personal passion.

2. BYD’s forward-thinking management. David Sokol is a student of management—he wrote a little book on the subject called “Pleased But Not Satisfied”—and he was impressed with Mr. Wang’s thoughtful and purposeful approach to building his company. So was I. Not many entrepreneurs evolve into effective leaders of global companies with 100,000 or more employees. This fact didn’t make the story, but I was interested to learn that BYD is working with the Hong Kong outpost of Business for Social Responsibility. Unlike some of its domestic competitors, BYD wants to adopt best practices in health and safety as well as find ways to empower its people to improve the company. Jeremy Prepscius, the Asia director for BSR, told me: “What makes them unique is that you have a Chinese company, a big one, that recognizes the value of continuing to evolve its internal culture, and recognizes that it is not just a top-down command-and-control culture…They are somewhere between an old state-owned Chinese enterprise and a modern Japanese company like Toyota.” Sokol told me that Mr. Wang seeks his ideas and criticism whenever they meet. Perhaps surprisingly, many CEOs have the confidence to act that way. On the downside, it’s hard to know whether BYD has a strong bench of managers behind Mr. Wang.

3. China’s commitment to clean energy. Much as I admire the Obama administration’s energy and environment team, there’s no way that the U.S. government is going to help U.S. car companies and battery makers as much as the Chinese government is going to help BYD. As Keith Bradsher of The New York Times reported in a page-one story earlier this month:

Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

The government will make direct grants to automakers (as we do, of course) and also provide “subsidies of up to $8,800 are being offered to taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle they purchase.”

Finally, there’s a fascinating footnote to this story, and it involves a man named Li Lu, who was born in China in 1966, the same year as Mr. Wang. When I began reporting the story, I wondered how Buffett and Charlie Munger had become aware of BYD. That question led me to Li Lu, who runs an investment firm, in which Munger is an investor, based in Pasadena that owns about 2.5% of BYD. He was the link between Berkshire and BYD.

Li Lu, it turns out, also was a leader of the pro-democracy movement that organized the mass student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989—20 years ago next month. He fled China after hundreds of demonstrators were killed and appeared on China’s “Twenty-one Most Wanted List.”

Escaping to New York, Li Lu was embraced by the human rights community and wrote a memoir called Moving the Mountain that reads like a movie. His well-educated parents were forced into labor camps during the Cultural Revolution and, as a 10-year-old-boy, he barely survived an earthquake that killed 250,000 in the city of Tangshin.

During the 1990s, Li Lu earned three degrees in six years from Columbia—a B.A. in economics, a law degree and an M.B.A. He worked for Allen & Co. and at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette before starting his investment fund. When David Sokol first flew to China to visit BYD, he stopped at LAX to have dinner with Li Lu, after which they traveled together to Hong Kong. Li Lu is still not permitted to travel freely to China.

Li Lu politely declined to speak with me for my story, telling me that some people in China are still unhappy about his role in the Tianenmen protests. Mr. Wang is not among them. “That’s past history,” he said. “Today, Mr Li and I share the belief that the best way to help China move forward is to make BYD a world-class company.”

Li Lu has agreed to come to FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference next week to talk about BYD. I’m eager to meet him and learn more about this remarkable company. You can read my BYD story here.

Posted by Marc under Consumption , Energy , Environment , Sustainability

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2 Responses to “Buffett’s Chinese electric car company”
1.Darren Toth Says:
April 15th, 2009 at 9:31 am
For as much as I love my country and want to see the United States thrive, I cannot help but see this as a progression that must happen. US automakers are stubbornly doing things the old fashioned way, and then wondering why they are being eaten alive in the marketplace.
I understand that the market research and all says that Americans want big cars, that we have this love affair with our cars and want them to stay that way, but I imagine that there were plenty of folks 100 years ago fighting against the surge of the automobile and it’s damaging economic effect on the horse and buggy industry. Lots of Smithies and Equestrian handlers probably went broke as cars took over our roads.
It is my opinion that every new revolutionary technology is going to break off a part or a whole of existing industries. I know that American auto jobs are being lost, but it isn’t because people don’t need to drive anymore; it is because the old school leadership of these companies, as well as the cultural ideology of many Americans, can’t get away from the notion that bigger is better.
There is this conservative idea that America reached perfection around 1950, and that we need to hang on to the ideals of that time when we “had it right”.
I don’t want any one or any industry to suffer, but the world’s needs are changing, and doing things the way we’ve always done them simply won’t work anymore.

2.Trade Jim News » Chinese electric carmaker eyes U.S. Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:29 am
[…] Warren Buffett to invest in the electric car company, according to Fortune contributing editor Mark Gunther. (Read Gunther’s recent Fortune cover story on BYD […]

http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=614

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