Plug-in hybrid: China beats US, Europe, Japan

The first plug-in production car has gone to market and it's not a Ford or a Toyota or a big-name German. Indeed it's not even American, or Japanese, or European.

It's the BYD F3DM and it's from China. And it probably feels pretty fortunate being called the F3DM because if it wasn't it would likely have a name like Giggle Tadpole or Lullaby Rolling.

Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean the F3DM has popped up out of nowhere. BYD is already one of the world's largest battery manufacturers -- indeed it's the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phone cells -- and last August founding chairman Wang Chuanfu told the press he had plans to usurp Toyota's spot as the world's largest motor manufacturer by 2025.

If that sounds like an idle boast, bear in mind that shortly after it was made, Warren Buffett stepped up to take a 10 per cent holding in the company.

And the car? It's a small sedan with a 1.0 litre petrol engine and equipped with an electric motor powered by a lithium ion-phosphate battery pack. This is different from the lithium-ion formula more often mentioned in these pages for the work being put into it by so many other manufacturers -- but is the same type of battery offered in the locally converted Blade Electric Vehicle (more here). The BYD pack is smaller and lighter and costs less to make than Li-ion batteries from other car companies.

A full charge will take the F3DM up to 100km on electricity, after which the burner kicks in to help power the car and simultaneously recharge the batteries, at least until the car can be pulled up for an overnight charge from a standard domestic power point.

The price is right, too -- it's gone to market in China for about $32,000. While that's an unimaginable fortune to a fair proportion of China's population, it's about half the price of a Prius there.

BYD has said it expects to go into Europe and US markets with several plug-in hybrid models over the next three years.