Design and Architecture
Building Their Dream: The Chinese Car Industry
The biggest hybrid and electric car company you've never heard of has put down a beachhead in Los Angeles. Plus, are you ready to have your car parked by a robot?
By Frances Anderton • • 29m ListenThe biggest hybrid and electric car company you've never heard of has put down a beachhead in Los Angeles. As the LA Auto Show opens, we hear from Art Center's Geoff Wardle and Chao Feng, about Build Your Dreams – BYD -- and the exploding Chinese car industry. Plus, are you ready to have your car parked by a robot? Randall Miller and Woody Nash talk about the automated parking systems that are coming to LA.
Banner image: Chao Feng sands his concept car at Art Center College of Design
In this episode
2 storiesWill China Define the Cars of This Century?
20 years ago, almost nobody drove a car in China. Now it is the world’s biggest car market, and is turning itself into the biggest manufacturer of homespun cars. Build Your Dreams is a China-U.S. company that started life a few years ago as a manufacturer of batteries, for cell phones and flashlights, and then for cars.
Read the story17 minThe Robot Will Park Your Car Now
Central to living and driving in Los Angeles is the multi-level parking structure—concrete, subterranean labyrinths which are disquieting to be alone in, not to mention confusing when you forget where you’ve parked your car. Now an additional kind of parking experience is coming to LA: Automated parking garages that stack cars into elevator-like…
Read the story12 min