i live in shanghai and have ridden in many byd's, basically the compact car model is very popular for didi drivers which is the equivalent of uber/lyft here. I'm not 100% certain if that compact byd is 100% electric, but it seems to drive quiet. There are government incentives to buy electric cars, less tax, lower price, the license plate is also a lot cheaper. In shanghai a license plate costs 100k rmb (15k usd) and you have to compete with tens of thousands others in a lottery system to get the right to buy one in the first place, for electric cars it's less than 100 usd. Some workarounds are to purchase a license plate from out of shanghai, but that means you can't drive on the highways and expressways during rush hour traffic (7:00-10:30 and 15:00-20:00 mon-fri), if you're caught by any of the millions of cameras, that's a 3 point fine and 200 rmb (you get 11 points per year which means you need to retake drivers ed. And re-test).<p>The byd's i've ridden in seem ok, quite underpowered, but good for city driving, i don't know how good the mileage is for one charge, but it's comfortable to sit in for a small compact, never had an issues with it as a passenger. Then again, i would never buy one of these myself, it's about 280k rmb, this is for a domestic car, there are a lot of other choices at that cost point for foreign cars even.<p>I just test-drove a model x tesla today, much nicer, but not the same price point, about 790k rmb.<p>I think warren buffet or someone invested a lot in byd, they have an suv version, too.