BYD Working on New Compact Sedan

The future will be a lot brighter for Chinese carmaker BYD which not only plans to debut in the United States in the years to come but also works on a number of projects, more appealing to the auto industry. The first to be released is reportedly the F3 replacement, a model that will likely hit the market in 2012, as China Car Times suggests.

Not much is known about the vehicle, but BYD apparently calls the vehicle 3A and intends to produce it in both hatchback and sedan configurations. The first public appearance will most likely be made at the Shanghai Motor Show, but only in concept form, while a production version will probably be revealed early next year.

Of course, everybody's curious to find out whether this is one of the models included in BYD's US takeover, but the company remains tightlipped when it comes to this topic.

BYD attended the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit to show several models, some of which are probable to hit American dealers by 2012. The F3DM for example is one of these vehicles and, as far as BYD is concerned, it is likely to register pretty good sales.

BYD will price its electric e6 crossover at $35,000 (€27,00) and its F3DM plug-in hybrid sedan at $28,800 (€22,200), when they hit the American market, sometime in 2012. The BYD F3DM is a plug-in hybrid compact sedan with an estimated all-electric rage of 40 to 60 miles (64 to 97 km), with an extra autonomy of 300 miles (480 km) when using the on-board gasoline engine.