BYD Hikes Plug-In and Electric Car Sales

BYD Co., China's biggest maker of electric cars, says domestic demand for its electric and plug-in hybrid cars jumped sixfold in the first half of 2014 to about 7,600 units, The Wall Street Journal reports.

But sales of the company's gasoline-powered cars, which generate half its revenue, plunged 27% to 180,000 units. BYD says its first-half profit dropped 15% to 361 million yuan ($59 million).

The company believes it can still reach its full-year sales goal of 20,000 EV/plug-ins in 2014, ten times its volume in 2013. BYD cites new rules about subsidies that make it feasible for the company to market its "green" vehicles beyond its home province of Guangdong.

BYD's e6 EV sells in China for about 380,000 yuan ($61,700), pricing it well out of reach of most buyers. The Journal notes that, until now, the country's largest cities have restricted rebates for EVs to cars produced locally.

The new policy helped push combined EV and hybrid vehicle sales in China to 20,500 in the first half of 2014, more than twice the volume for the same period last year, according to the China Assn. of Automobile Manufacturers.