BYD has produced 10,000,000 NEVs, here’s a look back at its first NEV: the F3DM
Last Thursday, China saw the production of the 10,000,000th NEV in 2024. For the first time ever, the country has produced more than 10 million NEVs in a single calendar year.
Today, BYD officially turned 30 years old and celebrated the occasion with the production of its 10,000,000th NEV at its Xiaomo production base in Shenzhen.
The milestone comes less than two months after the world’s largest manufacturer of NEVs produced its 9,000,000th NEV on September 25, and just 15 months after it produced its 5,000,000th NEV in August 2023, a milestone that took 15 years to achieve. Since BYD produced its 1,000,000th NEV in May 2021, the company has produced 9 million NEVs over the last 3.5 years.
As BYD looks forward to the start of its next 30 years, the company is on pace to produce and sell more than 4 million NEVs in 2024, with monthly production and sales having surpassed a mind-boggling half a million units. BYD has already surpassed Tesla in quarterly revenues, and it’s just a matter of time before it passes Tesla in BEV sales. It is also on the cusp of surpassing Ford in global vehicle sales.
Where is BYD headed in the future? It’s anybody’s guess, and probably beyond anyone’s dreams.
But perhaps we can look back at its past.
Having covered the Chinese auto industry for nearly a quarter century through various capacities, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness key moments in BYD’s history. One of those moments is attending the launch of BYD’s first PHEV: the F3DM and being one of the first to test drive the vehicle in Shenzhen, back in December 2008.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Below is the article that appeared in the January 2009 issue of China Auto Review describing that test drive almost 16 years ago:
F3DM: Exceptional acceleration, handling requires fine-tune
– by Lei Xing
SHENZHEN, Guangdong — The F3DM’s launch in China on December 15 was billed by some Chinese media as “possibly the start of a powertrain revolution.”
Reporters from CBU/CAR were in Shenzhen to experience first-hand just how revolutionary this new powertrain technology is. We came away with two major conclusions after test driving the world’s first mass produced plug-in hybrid. The F3DM is superbly quiet and accelerates exceptionally well in the full Electric Vehicle (EV) mode. However, steering feels rough and when the Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) mode kicks in, the noise level goes up noticeably.
The F3DM is built on the same F3 platform and body style. But the F3DM uses the BYD logo with a navy background as well as a “DM” badge on the front grille and rear trunk. Just above the license plate to the left of the rear trunk is a hidden power socket for charging the vehicle using a household 220-Volt power supply.
As soon as the fleet of six test vehicles pulled up at our seaside hotel, we noticed the remarkable
quietness of the cars. Had our heads turned back, we would not have known that the vehicles had arrived.
I hopped into the driver’s seat along with another industry analyst and a BYD engineer, eager to find out if I now were inside what could be the future vehicle of transportation.
Once the doors were closed, I still barely heard any noise except the humming of a cooking water pump. A quick inspection showed that the instrument panel has added an SoC gauge, which monitors the electricity stored in the battery. The current reading of the SoC gauge shows 70%. In addition, there are two buttons to the right of the gearshift (should be driveshift as there is no gear!) lever — one labeled “EV” and one labeled “EV+HEV.” This allows the driver to switch between driving modes anytime during vehicle operation, whether in park, drive, braking or high speed.
The F3DM flexible drivetrain allows three modes of operation, pure electric using battery power, series-hybrid where the engine drives a generator to recharge the batteries when the battery depletes to 50% and parallel-hybrid where the gasoline engine and electric motor both provide propulsive power.
The BYD engineer told me that as the vehicle was currently in EV mode, I just needed to operate the vehicle as I would normally do any other vehicle. So I put on my seatbelt, pulled back the drive shift lever into D and put my foot down on the gas, no, electric pedal, and off we went! Under this mode, it would cost a driver about RMB10 ($1.45) to operate the vehicle 100 km as it consumes on average 16 kWh of electricity. A similar gasoline vehicle would consume 7 liters of gasoline, or over RMB40.
The test vehicle did feel heavier than the existing F3 model, as the battery pack, power control, unit and the electric drive system together add about 400 kg to bring the total curb weight of the car to 1,560 kg. The battery pack itself is made of 100 ferrous batteries in series and weighs about 230 kg.
As I drove off, I could hear the little humming noise of the electric motor increase slightly, and the acceleration felt smooth. I noticed that the engine light was on and the BYD engineer explained that this is normal as the engine is not in use and therefore there is no oil pressure.
Once we got onto the main road in front of the hotel, my opportunity came to really “floor it,” as was suggested by the engineer and the acceleration was effortless as I sped up to over 90 km/h. Amazingly, the acceleration was beyond my expectation because the “pull back” feel could be sensed only when driving a car powered by a conventional 2.0L engine.
As we approached our first u-turn on the main road, I encountered a noticeable flaw in the handling and maneuvering of the vehicle — the steering wheel felt heavy and vibrated while making the turn, as if the front wheels needed alignment and balance. The brakes felt lethargic and responded a bit slow. The BYD engineer explained to us that this is indeed one of quite a few areas they are still calibrating on. Some of his colleagues overseeing the test drive of the other five vehicles have indicated that they were experiencing, in contrary, steering being too light, rather than too heavy.
I did not have a chance to test the vehicle under the HEV mode with the gasoline engine. The feedback from other members of the media who tested the HEV mode was both positive and negative. Acceleration was still superb when the battery power was full. But one driver found that when the battery capacity fell at 10% of the capacity, there was a moment that the gasoline engine failed to respond even when the pedal was floored. Furthermore, the 1.0L three-cylinder engine seemed unusually loud. BYD engineers on hand agreed that much fine-tuning was needed for the consumer ready vehicles.
The F3DM is equipped with two electric motors and a gasoline engine, with a combined power of 75 kW and torque of 400 Nm. Combined with BYD’s own 50 kW 3-cylinder 1.0L engine, the entire power/drivetrain system can churn out 125 kW of power and 490 Nm of torque similar to that of a 2.4L gasoline engine. Because the F3DM uses one of the electric motors as opposed to an ordinary transmission to drive the vehicle, the acceleration of the vehicle felt remarkably smooth and seamless, truly achieving continuous variable transmission (CVT) without the usual hesitation during gear shifting of an automatic. The electric motor hum picked up in intensity similar to driving an electric golf cart.
The technical term of the ferrous battery that BYD has developed is Lithium-Iron Phosphate, or LFP (LiFePO4). The 300V, 40 Ah LFP battery offers numerous benefits and advantages over other existing batteries, which are primarily valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) based, according to BYD.
The LFP battery is environmentally friendly, does not catch fire under collision, when overcharged or short-circuited. It will not explode when disposed in fire. It offers high energy density and capacity, provides long cycle life and can be operated at temperatures ranging from -20° to 60° C.
