Buffett Buys Stake in Chinese Battery Manufacturer

The investor Warren E. Buffett announced on Monday that he had agreed to buy a 9.89 percent stake in a Chinese battery manufacturer that plans to sell electric cars in the United States by 2010.

The MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, will pay 1.8 billion Hong Kong dollars — about $230 million — for the stake in the battery maker, the BYD Company. Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns 87.4 percent of MidAmerican.

Based in Shenzhen, a mainland Chinese city adjacent to Hong Kong, BYD is one of the world’s largest makers of rechargeable batteries for cellphones and other uses. The company also has a fast-growing auto-making unit that accounts for nearly a third of its revenue and makes fuel-efficient compact and subcompact cars for the Chinese market.

The president of BYD, Wang Chuanfu, said that the alliance with Mr. Buffett was not just about raising capital for the manufacturer, which relies heavily on short-term debt.

“If BYD were to enter the North American market, Mr. Buffett’s investment would enhance the BYD brand name,” Mr. Wang said at a news conference in Hong Kong late Monday.

He added that BYD would sell cars in the United States and might even move up its plans for entering the market in 2010, by using Berkshire’s money to accelerate research.

David Sokol, the chairman of MidAmerican, said at the news conference with Mr. Wang that Berkshire Hathaway wanted to address climate change and considered electric cars as a way to do so. “This is a technology that can really be a game changer if we’re serious about reducing” emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas associated with manmade global warming, Mr. Sokol said.

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