Chinese brand BYD brings a fleet of pure electric cars to London.

BYD, which is bringing its range of pure electric private hire vehicles to Europe, has teamed up with Thriev to provide 20 BYD e6 cars to the company’s emission-free London chauffeur-driven fleet within the next few weeks.

Last month, the Mayor of London announced that from 1 January 2018, all new taxis would have to be zero-emission capable in order to gain an operating licence. Today’s announcement means that the London private hire market is four years ahead of that development.

Thriev (www.thriev.com) offers low-cost, zero-emission, chauffeured cars to corporate and private users in London. The company is rolling out an electric car programme complete with its own rapid chargers, cars and state-of-the-art car/charger scheduling systems. Part of the deal with BYD is that Thriev will equip its facility at Edgware Road, west London, with BYD’s purpose-designed charging equipment, which allows fast charging of the e6 in just two hours.

Initially, the e6 fleet is being supplied on a lease arrangement, although both BYD and Thriev expect this to be the beginning of a long-term relationship that will go some way to fulfilling a joint BYD and Thriev vision of a ‘green city solution’ – the transitioning of key public and personal transport vehicles from petrol and diesel power to pure electric. In December, two fully-electric, full-size buses operated by Go-Ahead Group, entered service on two central Transport for London routes – part of a Europe-wide initiative to introduce emissions-free BYD buses to major city centre operations.

Both the e6 car and ebus from BYD share the same proven and reliable electric technology. They use BYD lithium iron Fe batteries, which have been proven in millions of miles of taxi and bus passenger-carrying service in China as well as many parts of the world.

Commenting on the agreement with Thriev, Isbrand Ho, BYD Europe’s Managing Director, said: “We have been looking at various options to bring our e6 and its proven emissions-free technology to London. We are convinced that in Thriev we have found the right partner to do this – we share many of the same objectives of providing safe, reliable and efficient green transport in cities”.

Arvind Vij, CEO and a co-founder of Thriev said: “We think that BYD’s e6 model meets our requirements to offer passenger comfort, good range and rapid charging. We share BYD’s desire to provide practical, zero-emission solutions and look forward to a long-term partnership.”

USA - Fisker seeks rejection of Chinese suitor it blames for its bankruptcy.

Fisker Automotive Inc., the bankrupt maker of a plug-in hybrid sports car, asked a federal judge to approve its proposed sale to a Hong Kong tycoon rather than a Chinese suitor that Fisker alleged was to blame for its failure.

A courtroom showdown is set for Friday that will determine the future of the defunct car maker that was launched with a controversial U.S. government loan. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross must decide if Fisker's business will be put to open auction or sold to an affiliate of Richard Li as the company has proposed.

The company's plans were thrown into doubt on Monday, when the official creditors' committee proposed auctioning the business and presented an initial $24.725 million bid from the U.S. unit of Wanxiang Group, China's largest auto supplier.

Fisker today attacked the creditors' proposal in a series of court filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., noting that after Wanxiang bought A123 Systems Inc, a battery maker, it cut supplies to Fisker.

"Wanxiang now seeks to profit from a bankruptcy that it helped cause," Fisker said in a court filing.

An attorney for the creditors' committee disputed that, noting that Wanxiang acquired A123 months after Fisker idled its production to save cash. "Fisker was no longer producing cars at that time," said Sunni Beville of Brown Rudnick.

The creditors' committee have called the Wanxiang bid proposal the best option and they also asked the bankruptcy court to allow them to sue to former Fisker director David Manion and others for improperly pushing the sale to Li.

Hanging in the balance are the assets of a company once touted as America's "green" rival to prestigious brands such as Maserati, but which has not made its signature Karma in more than a year.

The company obtained a $529 million loan from the Department of Energy that was meant to promote fuel efficient cars, which in turn helped to lure private backing.

Fisker raised more than $1.4 billion in public and private funds after its founding in 2007, but lavish spending, quality and engineering blunders and other mistakes drained the company's coffers and delayed the launch of the Karma, several people close to the company told Reuters earlier this year.

An entity affiliated with Li planned to buy Fisker after he paid $25 million for Fisker's government loan, outbidding Wanxiang. Instead of using cash, the Li affiliate planned to buy Fisker's assets using a "credit bid" of a portion of what Fisker owed on that loan, leaving other creditors with next to nothing.

Court records show that a majority of unsecured creditors such as design consultants and suppliers voted to reject the plan to sell Fisker to Li.

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