Watch out, Tesla: This Warren Buffett-backed Chinese electric vehicle maker plans US expansion

• Warren Buffett-backed Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD has plans to expand its U.S. production
• BYD sells its electric buses across the U.S., and Denver is one of its biggest customers

When President Donald Trump pushed "Made in America" week starting on Monday, Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD might not have been top of mind.

But the Warren Buffett-backed company has its sights set on expanding in the U.S. market with its Lancaster, California, production facility set for completion next month, Stella Li, president of BYD Motors, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday.

BYD wants to make more buses in the US  11 Hours Ago | 03:01

The facility, which employs around 700 people, will be able to annually produce 1,500 electric heavy-duty vehicles, such as municipal buses.

Li said BYD was also expanding into new product lines, such as electric refuse trucks and forklifts.

All in, BYD has already given better-known rival Tesla a run for its money: Tesla sold around 76,000 vehicles in 2016, while BYD clocked in more than 100,000 units in sales.

Li said that BYD's U.S. customer base wasn't just confined to green-focused California — the city of Denver is among its biggest customers.

"Our customer [base] is expanding into multiple [arenas] from public transit bus to the private one," she said, noting her company had orders from Facebook, Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco.

Brent Lewin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A BYD Co. electronic vehicle (EV) is charged at an EV charging station at the company's campus in the Pingshan district of Shenzhen, China.

Latin America was also a key developing market, she said, with BYD buses widely distributed there.

Li said her company initially faced customer resistance in the U.S. amid concerns that a Chinese company wouldn't stick around very long.

"Now it's much easier," she said, adding that attitudes changed as the company explained it was among the largest battery-makers in the world and could offer a 12-year warranty.

"Then we demonstrate the technology over and over," she said, noting that there were initial concerns about electric vehicles' range and performance, but the technology was now mature and accepted.

"Now more people view BYD as a global company," Li said.

By Leslie Shaffer

Source: https://goo.gl/sjSAUr

A janitor secretly amassed an $8 million fortune and left most of it to his library and hospital

Brattleboro Reformer | AP Photo

In this December 2011 photo, Connie Howe pours coffee for Ronald Read, left, and Dave Smith during the Charlie Slate Memorial Christmas breakfast at the American Legion in Brattleboro, Vt.

You don't need to earn a massive paycheck to become a millionaire. As one-time Vermont-based janitor and gas station attendant Ronald Read demonstrated, you can reach the seven-figure mark on a modest salary. Unbeknownst to everyone around him until he died at age 92 in June 2014, Read had quietly amassed an $8 million fortune, thanks to smart spending and investing habits. Even Read's family was "tremendously surprised" upon finding out about his hidden wealth. "He was a hard worker, but I don't think anybody had an idea that he was a multimillionaire," Read's stepson Phillip Brown told the Brattleboro Reformer in 2015. Read came from humble beginnings. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school and served in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific theater during World War II, according to Reuters. After the war, he came home to work at a gas station and as a janitor at JCPenney, and married a woman who had two children. Read maintained a frugal lifestyle, never spending money unless he had to. Friends remember him driving a second-hand Toyota Yaris, using safety pins to hold his coat together and cutting his own firewood well into his 90s. "I'm sure if he earned $50 in a week, he probably invested $40 of it,"said friend and neighbor Mark Richards



He was also a good stock picker and had the control to hold onto stocks for the long haul, a strategy billionaire investor Warren Buffett recommends. "Mr. Read owned at least 95 stocks at the time of his death, many of which he had held for years, if not decades," The Wall Street Journal reported in 2015. "Among his longtime holdings were blue-chip stalwarts such as Procter & Gamble, J.P. Morgan Chase, General Electric and Dow Chemical. When he died, he also had large stakes in J.M. Smucker, CVS Health and Johnson & Johnson," the publication reported. The library invested the bulk of the money. That way, "it will continue to pay dividends and support us down the road," LaTronica said. The donation also allowed the library to extend its hours and do some much-needed renovations to the 50-year-old building. Read bequeathed $4.8 million to Brattleboro

 Memorial Hospital, where he was a regular — not for treatment, but for breakfast. "He always had a cup of coffee and an English muffin with peanut butter," Ellen Smith said of her friend's morning ritual at the hospital cafe. "That was it. And he always sat at the exact same stool at the counter." The hospital plans to use the money to support infrastructure improvements and general modernization projects. "There are multiple areas in the hospital that need to be updated, and so this money will certainly allow us to do that," Gina Pattison, director of development and marketing at the hospital, told CNBC. "We are just incredibly fortunate and grateful."

By Kathleen Elkins

Source : http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/janitor-secretly-amassed-an-8-million-fortune.html