China’s BYD rolled out the welcome mat for billionaire investor and backer Warren Buffett, flying him to its south China base on Monday for a series of events to showcase its clean car initiatives.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has profited handsomely from a 10 percent stake it owns in BYD, which has jumped nearly seven times in value since Buffett purchased it for $230 million in 2008.
BYD invited Buffett to Shenzhen for a signing ceremony that will see the company build an energy storage power station with China Southern Power Grid, and a celebration to mark the sale of its 1 millionth car, local media reported.
“This is my first trip to Shenzhen but I promise you it won’t be my last,” Buffett told the audience at the ceremony.
Reuters could not attend the event due to restricted access but obtained a recorded speech of Buffett during the ceremony.
Buffett praised Shenzhen, a boomtown near Hong Kong, for taking the lead in using electric vehicles as taxis to help cut pollution.
“Each taxi will produce one-tenth pollution of the regular sedan. If we push more public transportation to change to EV, it will greatly help reduce pollution in the city,” he said.
BYD shipped its first batch of all electric cars, E6, earlier this year and all of them were used as taxis in Shenzhen.
Buffett, the world’s third-richest man with a fortune estimated by U.S. magazine Forbes at $47 billion, arrived in Shenzhen on a jet chartered by BYD, according to the China-based Phoenix net website, adding that BYD had spent several million yuan to bring Buffett to visit its China headquarters.
Buffett called BYD a young and promising company that will play a leading role in the future.
