In January 17th-23rd 2009 issue of The Economist, the British weekly looks at the displays of battery-powered cars at the Detroit international auto show. In fact, as the paper notes, the exhibition was one of the only interesting aspects of an otherwise subdued venue.

Battery-powered are simply; like a cell phone expect for your car. You charge them at home or a battery station and then you’re on the go as with any other car. And it would appear that battery cars are the future as ever major car company from GM, to Toyota, to Mercedes have designed battery cars.

The American leader, and perhaps the world, is the Silicon Vally based Telsa Motors.

Telsa’s cars as with other battery cars from mainstream producers all follow the same formula: an eight-hour charge will give you the range of 100 miles.

But there is one exception from a little well-known Chinese automaker; BYD.

BYD ventured into the auto industry after establishing itself as a battery maker. BYD claims that its battery-powered auto costs half that of rivals, needs only a three-hour charge and on that solely three-hours it has a range of 250 miles!

Such a claim would seem outlandish. How did the Chinese, new to cars with a smaller R&D budget, manage to produce a battery that costs less than half of rivals, cuts charge time from more than 50%, and more than doubles range?

“No bloody way,” Elon Musk, Telsa founder, was quoted by The Economist about the BYD car.

May it be that the BYD car is fiction. Not likely. First, BYD is news to car, but batteries are its trademark. Further, the world’s greatest investor, Warren Buffet, was just shown his confidence in BYD by investing $250 for a 10% stake in the company.

Buffet did not become the world’s richest man by making foolish investments by deceitful sellers.

The BYD might be all too real for rival automakers.