BYD
"A technology company without its own technology is nothing. We will build everything ourselves." — Wang Chuanfu
ONE
THE ORPHAN
EXT. WUWEI COUNTY, ANHUI PROVINCE, CHINA - DAY (1981)
A poor rural village. Rice paddies stretch to the horizon. Crumbling houses. A funeral procession moves slowly down a dirt road. Neighbors carry a simple wooden coffin. At the back of the procession walks WANG CHUANFU, 15, thin, hollow-eyed. His mother has just died. His father died the year before.
Wuwei County, Anhui Province, China. 1981.
His older brother and sister-in-law stand beside him. They are poor. Farmers. They have already agreed to raise him, sacrificing their own savings.
BROTHER
(putting his arm around Wang)
You will study. Mother wanted you to study. Father wanted you to study. We will find the money.
YOUNG WANG
(staring at the coffin)
What is the point of studying if everyone you love dies?
BROTHER
The point is to build something that lasts longer than a life.
Young Wang watches the coffin lowered into the earth. His fists are clenched. Something in him hardens. Not from bitterness. From resolve.
INT. CENTRAL SOUTH UNIVERSITY, CHANGSHA - DAY (1983)
A chemistry laboratory. WANG CHUANFU, now 17, a university student on a full scholarship, works with intense focus. PROFESSOR CHEN watches from the doorway. Other students have gone home. Wang is still here. He is always still here.
PROFESSOR CHEN
Wang Chuanfu. It is ten o'clock at night. The lab closed two hours ago.
WANG
(not looking up)
I am close to isolating the nickel-cadmium compound. If I stop now, I lose the reaction.
PROFESSOR CHEN
(sitting down beside him)
Tell me about batteries. Why batteries?
WANG
Everything runs on energy. Lights. Machines. Cities. Whoever controls how energy is stored controls how the world works. Batteries are the future. Not oil. Not coal. Batteries.
PROFESSOR CHEN
(impressed)
That is a very large thought for a second-year student.
WANG
(finally looking up)
I am an orphan from a farming village with nothing. Large thoughts are all I can afford.
INT. GOVERNMENT RESEARCH INSTITUTE, BEIJING - DAY (1990)
WANG, 24, now holds a master's degree in physical chemistry. He works at a government research institute in Beijing, studying battery technology. He is the youngest department head in the institute's history. But he is frustrated. The bureaucracy is crushing.
INSTITUTE DIRECTOR
Wang, your research on rechargeable batteries is excellent. But commercialization is not our mandate. We publish papers. We do not start companies.
WANG
Director, Japan controls 90% of the global rechargeable battery market. Sanyo, Sony, Matsushita — they charge whatever they want. China has the raw materials. We have the chemistry talent. All we lack is the will to compete.
INSTITUTE DIRECTOR
And the capital. And the manufacturing. And the brand. And the quality control. Be realistic, Wang.
WANG
(standing)
Realistic is a word that people use when they have decided to stop trying.
WANG (breaking the fourth wall)
I spent five years at that institute. Five years publishing papers that no one read, attending meetings that led nowhere, and watching Japan get richer selling batteries made from Chinese lithium and cobalt. I decided that if I was going to change the world, I could not do it inside a bureaucracy. I needed to build something of my own. And I would need to start with nothing. Which, fortunately, was something I had a great deal of experience with.
INT. BORROWED WAREHOUSE, SHENZHEN - DAY (1995)
A dusty, cavernous warehouse in Shenzhen's industrial district. WANG stands in the middle of it with his cousin LÜ XIANG-YANG. The warehouse is empty except for a folding table, two chairs, and a blackboard on which Wang has drawn a diagram of a battery cell.
Shenzhen, China. 1995. BYD is founded. Starting capital: 2.5 million yuan (approximately $300,000), borrowed from Lü Xiang-yang.
LÜ
Chuanfu, this is everything I have. Every yuan. If this fails, I lose my house.
WANG
(drawing on the blackboard)
It will not fail. The Japanese use fully automated production lines that cost $100 million. We will use semi-automated lines with human workers. Same chemistry. Same quality. One-tenth the cost.
LÜ
And who will buy batteries from a company that does not exist yet?
WANG
Everyone who is tired of paying Japanese prices. Which is everyone.
DISSOLVE TO:
TWO
THE BATTERY KING
INT. BYD FACTORY, SHENZHEN - DAY (2000)
Five years later. The warehouse has become a sprawling factory complex. Thousands of workers assemble battery cells by hand. WANG walks the production floor, stopping at each station, adjusting processes, teaching workers.
2000. BYD is now the world's second-largest manufacturer of rechargeable batteries. Clients include Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung.
FACTORY MANAGER
Wang zong, Motorola wants to double their order. They say our batteries are 40% cheaper than Sanyo's and the quality is identical.
WANG
(smiling for the first time in the film)
Tell Motorola we will triple capacity by next quarter. And reduce the price another 10%.
FACTORY MANAGER
Reduce? But we can charge more now —
WANG
No. The strategy is always the same: lower cost, higher volume, better technology. Never let the customer have a reason to go back to Japan. Never.
INT. BYD HEADQUARTERS, BOARDROOM - DAY (2003)
Wang stands before his board of directors. Behind him, a presentation slide shows a car. Not a battery. A car.
WANG
We are going to build cars.
Stunned silence.
BOARD MEMBER 1
Cars? We are a battery company. We know nothing about automobiles.
WANG
We know batteries. And the future of automobiles is batteries. Every car company in the world will need what we have. But instead of selling them components, we will sell them competition.
BOARD MEMBER 2
Wang zong, Toyota has been building cars for seventy years. We have been building batteries for eight.
WANG
(pointing at the slide)
Toyota does not know how to build a battery that can power a car for 400 kilometers. We do. The car is a box with wheels. The battery is the revolution. And we own the revolution.
BYD acquires Qinchuan Auto, a failing state-owned car company, for $70 million. The entire automotive industry laughs. A battery maker building cars. Absurd.
2003. BYD acquires Qinchuan Auto. Wall Street analysts downgrade the stock. The share price drops 20% in a day.
INT. BYD AUTO FACTORY - DAY (2005)
Chaos. The first BYD car, the F3, is a reverse-engineered sedan. It is cheap. It is functional. The engineering is rough. Quality complaints pour in. Wang stands on the factory floor at midnight, surrounded by engineers, personally inspecting defective parts.
CHIEF ENGINEER
Wang zong, the transmission is failing in cold weather. The paint quality is below standard. The dealers are complaining —
WANG
(examining a faulty gearbox)
Fix it. Every defect is a lesson. We will build a million of these cars and each one will be better than the last. The Japanese spent decades getting quality right. We will do it in five years because we have no choice. We cannot afford to be slow.
INT. BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY OFFICE, OMAHA - DAY (2008)
CHARLIE MUNGER, 84, sits in his office surrounded by annual reports. He has just returned from a trip to Shenzhen. He picks up the phone and calls WARREN BUFFETT.
MUNGER
Warren, I just met the most remarkable person I've encountered in my business career.
BUFFETT
(on phone)
That's a strong statement, Charlie.
MUNGER
A Chinese engineer named Wang Chuanfu. He runs a company called BYD. They make batteries and cars. He's a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch. I've never seen anything like him. We need to invest.
BUFFETT
We don't know anything about Chinese car companies, Charlie.
MUNGER
I know. That's why I'm calling you instead of just doing it myself. We buy 10% of BYD. $230 million. Trust me on this one.
BUFFETT
(a long pause)
Charlie, in sixty years of partnership, how many times have you said "trust me on this one"?
MUNGER
This is the first time.
September 2008. Berkshire Hathaway invests $232 million for a 10% stake in BYD. The investment will eventually be worth over $8 billion.
CUT TO:
THREE
THE RACE
INT. BYD R&D CENTER, SHENZHEN - DAY (2010)
Wang walks through a vast research facility. Thousands of engineers work in open-plan laboratories. Battery testing. Motor design. Power electronics. Software. BYD designs everything in-house. Wang insists on it.
WANG
(to a group of young engineers)
Tesla buys its batteries from Panasonic. Volkswagen buys its batteries from LG and CATL. They are car companies that depend on suppliers. We are a battery company that builds cars. Do you understand the difference? We control the most important and most expensive component in the vehicle. Everyone else is at the mercy of their supplier. We are at the mercy of no one.
INT. BYD BOARDROOM - DAY (2015)
Wang presents to his leadership team. On screen: global EV sales data. Tesla dominates. BYD is a distant second.
WANG
Tesla sells 50,000 cars a year. Beautiful cars. Expensive cars. Cars for rich Americans. We will sell 500,000 cars a year. Affordable cars. Cars for every family in China. And then every family in the world.
VP OF SALES
Wang zong, our brand perception outside China is very low. People think BYD means cheap, low quality —
WANG
(cutting him off)
People said the same thing about Japanese cars in the 1960s. About Korean cars in the 1990s. Quality changes perception. Build a car that is better than a Toyota and cheaper than a Volkswagen, and the world will come to us. They will have no choice.
INT. BYD BLADE BATTERY TESTING LAB - DAY (2020)
Wang stands behind a blast shield. Engineers prepare a nail penetration test on BYD's new Blade Battery — a lithium iron phosphate cell that Wang believes will change the entire industry. A steel nail is driven through a conventional lithium-ion battery. It erupts in flames. Then the nail is driven through the Blade Battery. Nothing. No fire. No smoke. The surface remains cool.
2020. The BYD Blade Battery. Lithium iron phosphate. No cobalt. No nickel. No fire risk. The safest EV battery in the world.
WANG
(quietly, to his engineers)
This is it. This is the battery that ends the argument. No more range anxiety. No more fire risk. No more dependency on cobalt from the Congo. This battery will power 10 million cars a year. And every single cell will be made by us.
INT. WANG'S OFFICE, SHENZHEN - NIGHT (2022)
Wang at his desk, late at night. On his screen: BYD has just overtaken Tesla in global EV sales. The numbers are staggering. 1.86 million new energy vehicles sold in a single year. The orphan from Anhui province has defeated Elon Musk.
LÜ
(entering)
Chuanfu. Have you seen the numbers?
WANG
(staring at the screen)
Yes.
LÜ
We are number one. Number one in the world. What your brother said — build something that lasts longer than a life. You did it.
Wang says nothing for a long time. Then:
WANG
Number one means nothing if we stop improving. Toyota was number one for twenty years and now they are scrambling to catch up. The moment you celebrate is the moment you start falling behind.
LÜ
(laughing)
You are the most impossible person I have ever known. We just became the largest EV company on Earth and you want to talk about what's next.
WANG
What's next is everything. Solid-state batteries. Autonomous driving. Energy storage for the grid. Electric ships. Electric aircraft. The internal combustion engine is dying and we are building the world that replaces it. This is not a moment to celebrate. This is a moment to accelerate.
CUT TO:
FOUR
BUILD YOUR DREAMS
EXT. BYD GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS, SHENZHEN - DAY (2024)
The BYD campus. An enormous complex of factories, R&D centers, and office towers. 600,000 employees. Wang walks through it like a general inspecting his forces. He stops at the newest factory — a fully automated production line producing one car every thirty seconds.
2024. BYD sells over 3 million new energy vehicles. Revenue exceeds $80 billion. The company produces its own batteries, semiconductors, motors, and software.
WANG
(V.O.)
They asked me once what BYD stands for. Build Your Dreams. I named it that because when I was fifteen years old, burying my mother in a farming village in Anhui province, dreams were all I had. I could not eat them. I could not sell them. But I could build them. And I did. Every battery. Every car. Every factory. Built from nothing, by people the world overlooked, in a country the world underestimated. That is the BYD story. That is China's story. That is my story.
INT. BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY ANNUAL MEETING, OMAHA - DAY (2024)
CHARLIE MUNGER's seat is empty. He died in November 2023. BUFFETT sits on stage alone for the first time. A shareholder asks about BYD.
SHAREHOLDER
Mr. Buffett, Charlie championed the BYD investment. With Charlie gone, what is your view?
BUFFETT
(a long pause, emotional)
Charlie was the smartest person I ever knew. And his best investment idea was BYD. He met Wang Chuanfu and told me this man was a combination of Edison and Welch. I didn't fully understand what Charlie saw. But I trusted him. And our $232 million investment became worth billions. Charlie was right. He was almost always right. I miss him every day.
EXT. WUWEI COUNTY, ANHUI PROVINCE - DAY (PRESENT)
Wang returns to his village. The dirt roads are now paved. The crumbling houses have been rebuilt. BYD has funded a school, a hospital, a research center. Wang stands at his parents' grave. He is alone.
WANG
(speaking to the graves)
Mother. Father. The company is worth more than all the money in Anhui province now. More than I could have imagined. More than you could have imagined. But I want you to know — it was never about the money. It was about proving that a boy from nowhere could build something that matters. That losing everything does not have to be the end. It can be the beginning.
He places two small battery cells on the graves. One nickel-cadmium. One Blade. The first battery BYD ever made, and the latest. Then he turns and walks away, back toward the car waiting on the road. A BYD, of course.
FADE TO BLACK.
Wang Chuanfu is worth approximately $20 billion. BYD is the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, selling over 3 million vehicles annually. The company employs over 600,000 people and operates factories in China, Brazil, Hungary, Thailand, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan. BYD produces its own batteries, semiconductors, electric motors, and vehicle software — more vertically integrated than any automaker in history. Warren Buffett's initial $232 million investment grew to over $8 billion. Charlie Munger, who discovered BYD, called Wang Chuanfu "a genius" and said the investment was his proudest accomplishment. Wang Chuanfu has never forgotten his roots in Wuwei County. He still visits his parents' graves every year.
THE END