Many of you might have seen this car at PW before. Lets have a detailed look into it. Its called the BYD F3..
BYD (Build Your Dreams) is one of the top auto manufacturers in China. BYD made its debut from less than 30 people in 1995 and became the second largest rechargeable battery producer in the world in 2003. Backed by US billionaire Warren Buffett, BYD is popular for reverse engineering established automobile brands.. read details here. BYD spends tens of millions of yuan every year buying and then dismantling the newest models built by manufacturers around the world. Rather than wasting effort creating new models for the sake of variety, a limited number of resources are spent on developing key products. That’s the company’s focus. As a brazen market player, BYD picks best-selling products and blatantly copies them, head to toe.
The car in discussion, the BYD F3 is an amusing blend of 9th generation Toyota corolla having rear-end similar to that of Honda City. Under the hood BYD F3 features a 4 cylinder, 1.5 liter, Mitsubishi engine (4G15S) with an Engine output of 75KW & equipped with distributor-less Bosch ignition and fuel injection system. The emissions standards meet Euro IV level. Fuel efficiency of F3 is rated at approx 7L/100KM..
Quality wise BYD is considered among the best Chinese auto manufacturers while the F3 also has an impressive crash test result.. (see video below). Not only this, BYD topped the Chinese sales chart in October 2008 and since then is holding the top slot successfully. The average sales figure of F3 is about 24,000 units per month while from Jan 2010 to May 2010, BYD has already sold more than 1,38,000 units of F3 in only the initial 5 months of this year.
Other than the sedan form, the F3 is also available as hatchback called F3R, a plug-in hybrid version called F3DM which also holds the pride to be the world's first ever plug-in hybrid in production, and a factory fitted CNG version as well.
Features include A/C, AM/FM/CD/MP3 stereo, electric windows and mirrors, driver and passenger air bags, auxiliary front fog lights and upgraded audio / IVI (in vehicle infotainment), Three point safety belts, power steering, alloy wheels fitted with 195/60 R15 tires, 4 wheel disk brake system with ABS, LED tail lights etc..
Price of the F3 starts from just 59800rmb (7.45 lac PKR)
F3 crash test video:
//youtu.be/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzjFN6oD2yU
//youtu.be/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BMwe3RYpUY
EDIT: Spy Shots New F3.. details at post #21
