Uber going electric with BYD

BYD e6 electric car is displayed at a dealership of BYD in Hangzhou city, East China's Zhejiang province, Dec 18, 2014.[Photo / IC]

Chinese automobile maker BYD Co Ltd is expected to increase its electric passenger car's presence in the US market following a pilot program with Uber Inc.

So far, about 25 Uber drivers have been operating BYD e6 electric cars in Chicago under a program recently launched by Uber, BYD and local dealership Green Wheels USA, which features electric and hybrid cars.

The BYD e6s "are solid cars with good batteries. It's also bigger with lots of room," said Green Wheels President Doug Snower, who has been doing business with BYD since 2009.

"That's why I wanted to introduce BYD cars to Uber," he said. They had been in talks since December of last year before a deal was reached a few weeks ago.

The e6 was approved by US regulators for sale in March of last year, four years after BYD announced plans to sell the car in the US in 2010, following Warren Buffett's backing, which had come a year earlier.

Green Wheels USA is currently the only dealership in the US through which BYD e6 is available, according to Snower. "We are still in the process of selling the car but we hope to sell more by the end of the year," he said.

Uber drivers can opt to pay $200 a week, with no down payment, to use the car during their shifts.

This deal also marks Uber's first experiment with electric vehicles and it expects to eventually expand the program to other US cities, according to Reuters.

San Francisco-based Uber Inc, through its mobile app-based transportation network, allows consumers to submit a trip request, which is then routed to crowd-sourced taxi drivers.