Chinese automotive giant BYD has officially launched its new “e-platform 3.0” for electric vehicles and its new Ocean-X concept, a mid-sized sedan built upon the company’s new EV platform.
BYD’s new e-platform 3.0 is intended to bring to market the company’s advancements in intelligence, efficiency, safety, and aesthetics, and promote the advantages of EVs such as safety and low-temperature driving range, as well as its improved intelligent driving experiences.
BYD says the new platform 3.0 will enable range of more than 1,000-kilometres through a new electric powertrain and a 20 per cent increase in the thermal efficiency of the batteries. It will boast acceleration of 0-100km/h in only 2.9 seconds.
The new e-platform integrates drive, braking, and steering system and offers what the company claims is an industry first drive train domain controller.
BYD’s smart cockpit domain controller and smart body domain controller are already in mass production, while BYD has also independently developed its own BYD OS which it claims “decouples hardware and software, offering an elite collaboration system for high levels of intelligent driving.”
The unveiled BYD Ocean-X concept vehicle boasts all of these e-platform 3.0 features and integrates the company’s blade batteries in a vehicle featuring shorter overhangs and a longer wheelbase, significantly expanding the passenger space.
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BYD Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu said that he expects the company’s new e-platform 3.0 to be “the cradle for the next generation of EVs” and, equipped with the company’s “ultra-safe blade batteries” the new Ocean-X will be “a more efficient and safer intelligent EV for the next generation.”
While BYD’s focus is currently on its home market of China, the company is nevertheless slowly expanding into overseas markets.
In August, for example, the company delivered Norway’s first all-electric BYD Tang SUV to a customer in the country’s capital of Oslo, the first of 100 to arrive in Norway, which come equipped with the company’s Blade lithium iron phosphate electric vehicle (EV) battery.
This follows a May 2020 announcement that it would enter the European market, starting by bringing its electric Tang SUV to the EV-friendly Scandinavian country of Norway.
Similarly, and much closer to home, deliveries to Australia of the BYD Yuan Plus electric crossover are expected to start in April 2022. Further, BYD expects to shake up Australia’s burgeoning EV market with an “amazing” price point.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.