Warren Buffett doesn't use Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A -0.39%) (BRK.B -0.56%) capital to invest in up-and-coming technologies often, so when he does, it is certainly worth a closer look. In the exciting, but crowded, electric vehicle space, Buffett invested in a Chinese electric vehicle company called BYD (BYDD.F -1.10%) several years ago, and still holds the multi-billion dollar position in Berkshire's portfolio today. In this Fool Live video clip, recorded on April 28, Fool.com contributors Matt Frankel, CFP, and Jason Hall and Chief Growth Officer Anand Chokkavelu discuss Buffett's favorite EV stock and why it attracted his attention.
Anand Chokkavelu: Matt's next one, you mentioned it, BYD, which is market capital of $70 billion, sales of $24 billion, selling 3X sales since it's more mature, we'll call this the Chinese Buffett one. Matt, take it away.
Matt Frankel: Anand just gave away the most fun part of the discussion, the Buffett ties, but I'll get there in a second. This is the third Tesla (TSLA -4.95%) of China that we're talking about. The first two were at 28 and 27 times sales respectively. This one's at three times sales. I'm a big value investor, I believe valuations matter, even in this space it's crazy as the EV space is right now. BYD has been around for a long time. They weren't a car company at first. They were founded in 1995. They were originally a battery company. They were the first Chinese battery supplier for Motorola (MMI -1.50%) and Nokia (NOK 0.22%) when they were making the, remember the little flip phones and stuff like that. So they supplied batteries for things like that. Pivoted to vehicles in the early 2000s, now they have the best selling EV model in China. They delivered 427,000 vehicles in 2020, about half of which were either battery electric vehicles were hybrids. They have a full range of EV models already on the market, including commercial vehicles. They also build monorail systems, which is a really cool product. They aim to have an ecosystem of just zero emissions transportation for the entire world. They make buses, they make street sweepers, which are currently in use in China right now. They've been profitable for years, which is a word that you haven't heard much yet in this conversation. They've been profitable since 2008 selling cars. So I would actually call them more of like the General Motors (GM 0.18%) or the Ford (F -0.40%) of China rather than the Tesla of China, just because of their track record, their profitability, their wide range of proven vehicles.
Chokkavelu: You just dropped it from 3X sales to 1.5X sales when you just branded them the GM of China, sorry about it.
Frankel: Did I just devalue?
Jason Hall: Sell, sell, sell.
Frankel: As Anand mentioned, Warren Buffett invested in this company a long time ago. He paid, let me get the number right, he paid $232 million for 8.25% of the company back in 2008. That stake is worth more than $7 billion now. He wanted to by 25% of the company, but they wouldn't sell it to him. So big investment in Buffett's portfolio, very successful one. Charlie Munger, who's normally the voice of like, "Don't invest in that," has been very optimistic on the company. He called their CEO better than Thomas Edison at running a business. So it's a really impressive company. That's the one that I would call the Tesla in China for right now.
