Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Reduces Stake in BYD Amid Record Earnings

Energyportal.eu ^ | November 7, 2023 | Howard Rhodes

[cba123]

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has significantly reduced its stake in Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD in a series of sales over the past 18 months, according to recent filings. The most recent share sale occurred on October 25, just days before BYD announced record quarterly earnings. This prompted some analysts to raise their price targets for the company.

During the quarter, BYD’s auto segment achieved a net profit of Rmb9.4 billion ($1.28 billion), equivalent to an impressive net profit of Rmb11.4k per car, according to Paul Gong, the head of China auto at UBS Global Research. Gong attributes this success to economies of scale, accelerating export sales, and declining lithium prices. He also expressed optimism about BYD, stating that it remains their most favored electric vehicle (EV) name under coverage.

[cba123]

Buffett still owns a very significant part of BYD, I think he (might) still be the major stockholder. But he definitely made a ton on this.

Kind of makes one think. Why are Americans, building up China?

[Rockingham]

For years, Buffet and other foreign investors gravitated to China due to favorable trade rules and a massive workforce available for factory production. China’s golden era though is now fading and foreign investors are getting their money out, as much as they can, as quickly as they can.

[House Atreides]

Wise financial move as the realities of electric cars slowly becomes apparent to the general public.

[Gen.Blather]

More and more articles are appearing about the downsides of electric vehicles. While some Freepers are adamant that Tesla will be fine regardless, I don’t think so. Firstly, Tesla requires an entire ecosystem of mining, refining and supply. If other manufacturers go out of business that ecosystem gets smaller and less efficient. This will run up the prices even if Tesla solves the fire problems that will put the others out of business. I don’t think they can. The local pick and pull won’t take an electric vehicle so you can’t even haul one away after it has been in an accident. No one local will take it and most people can’t take them home due to ordinances against wrecked cars. You can’t put it in your garage unless you have a death wish. And, probably within a year nobody will insure an electric car.

Another problem is bandwidth. Drive into a gas station with your ICE car and you can rapidly fill your tank from any pump regardless of how many cars are at the other pumps. But an electric charging station is limited to the bandwidth of the local transformer. If it’s, say, a megawatt and each car pulls, say a third of that then it can charge three cars at full speed. But the fourth car reduces the overall charge rate. Ten cars at the station will mean they all spend a very, very long time there.

Electric cars are a solution to an imaginary problem.

[Rockingham]

All too true. My guess is that it will take years to develop a proper EV ecosystem for what will never be more than a niche market. Then again, if the claims of cold fusion researchers come to fruition, EVs may end up being powered by cheap and abundant electricity in the form of a cold fusion device that works in tandem with a small battery for a decade or more without refueling. If so, that would make for an EV power source that beats the internal combustion engine into oblivion.

[cgbg]

Good post—agree with all your points.

I also expect the economy to crash in the next few years and that will make luxuries like electric vehicles start decorating junk yards.

[Gen.Blather]

I took my thermos classes in college from a genuine, died in the wool NASA scientist. Along with the theory, he had us work through every green energy scam and cold fusion theory. None of them can work. As for cold fusion he said it was something that would always be just twenty years away. The scientists laughed at it and considered it just another scam to get funding. He was the college’s number one earner. To reduce all of thermodynamics to just one sentence it is, “you can’t get more out of something than you put into it.
Ever.” (Okay, technically, that’s two sentences.)

[Rockingham]

For every major advance in physics or technology, there are legions of physicists saying that it makes no sense. As Max Planck observed, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Thomas Kuhn's seminal The Structure of Scientific Revolutions made that point at length. As Kuhn argued, routine scientific progress is at times interrupted by periods of revolutionary science in which anomalies lead to new paradigms and new science.

As for cold fusion, also known as low energy nuclear reactions, there is enough scientific evidence for it that ARPA-E and several other agencies are funding research. Popular Science.

Significantly, theoretical and computational difficulties make for considerable uncertainty in the details of how larger atoms behave. Those uncertainties leave room for new science, potentially of a revolutionary character.