An upstart Chinese electric car company — best known for making cellphone batteries — will locate its North American headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, with plans to possibly expand into manufacturing in the United States in the years ahead.<
BYD Co., which employs 150,000 workers worldwide, will open here in late 2010 and plans to enter the U.S. electric car market about the same time, shipping its electric vehicles through the Port of Los Angeles.
The headquarters will be near Figueroa and 18th streets and will eventually have about 150 corporate employees, including managers, designers and engineers. City officials predict that the BYD corporate office could attract more than 750 indirect jobs through contractors and other support services.
Wang Chuan-fu, chairman of the Shenzhen, China, company, recently said that the company also will aggressively pursue markets for solar panels and battery storage for renewable energy supplies. Along with BYD's electric cars, all manufacturing will be done in China. If the company's initial foray into the U.S. market is successful, BYD's next step would be to build a distribution system and, eventually, manufacturing facilities in the United States for the cars, solar panels and batteries, said Senior Vice President Stella Li, who will run BYD's North American operation.
The company plans to introduce the full-size electric e6 by the end of the year, and at first will market it to governments and others customers with large pools of fleet cars.
Wang and Li joined Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the steps of City Hall on April 30 to make the formal announcement. Austin Beutner, deputy mayor for economic and business policy, said the city hopes BYD's presence will serve as a catalyst for establishing a vibrant “green'' industry in Los Angeles.
The city offers reduced tariffs for all zero-emission vehicles shipped into its port, one of the major enticements used to lure BYD, Beutner said. The city also will provide about $1 million in improvements around the firm's headquarters, and has agreed to showcase BYD's e6 in the terminals at Los Angeles International Airport.
Beutner, who ran a successful private equity firm before coming to the city, called BYD “one of the world's leading companies,” and said its presence will attract suppliers, business partners and other related firms that will compound job growth in the city.
“We'll look back after five or 10 years, and a whole ecosystem of businesses will have grown,'' he said. “When we can attract leadership companies like this to Los Angeles, it's really a tale of how we can use the city to help, and a tale of why this is important.''
In July, Villaraigosa pledged that the city would halt the use of coal-burning power plants by 2020 and, by that same year, generate at least 40% of its energy from renewable resources, including solar, wind and geothermal power. The mayor later said he hopes to leverage the buying power of the DWP, the largest municipal utility in the nation, to attract solar panel manufacturers and other renewable energy companies to Los Angeles.
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