Warren Buffett doesn't typically invest in new technology companies.

Michael Austin: Especially not Asian – he's never invested in an Asian technology company before.

Exactly. So what did he see in BYD, and did you actually meet with him face-to-face?

Michael Austin: I met with him and Charlie [Munger]. I didn't do any of the negotiations for the share procurements. I met with David Sokol, who is the chairman of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company. Great guy. Fantastic, in fact. I would say he's every bit as much Warren.

Do you think he's the successor?

Michael Austin: I don't need to say that; it's been published that he's a likely candidate. But they're talking about splitting up Warren's duties anyway.

And you know, only Warren and Charlie – Charlie seems to know more about his successor than Warren knows. [Laughs] It's true! You should ask him.

I would tell you, it is that BYD wasn't like a Detroit auto company. We weren't. We weren't coming out of the same tub. We weren't coming to compete with Kia or Hyundei. We weren't coming here to compete on price. We had something completely different. Even our vision was not about making EVs and flooding the market with EVs. It wasn't even that vision.

It was this holistic, you know what, let's put solar panels on the roof of every home. And let's put solar-shaded parking. And let's charge batteries all day long. And when they come home at night, they're discharging, DC to DC, and creating this zero emission solution, and not just a transference of the problem. So I think he was really, really keen on – even though he didn't understand the technology, he caught the vision of, this company is thinking, and it's a Chinese company that's thinking about the environment, and it's thinking about how to change China.

And certainly Warren said, “I need that in the U.S.” BYD wasn't convinced that he needed it in the U.S. In fact, it was Warren – Warren pushed them a lot. Because the truth is, the market is in China. The market is in India next. It's never going to be in the U.S. We're going to sell, what, 10 to 15 million vehicles here. They sold 15 million in China alone! They passed the U.S. market two years ago.

They sold how many in China?

Michael Austin: The whole market was 15 million. The U.S. market was 11 here, right? The year before it was 13 in China and 9 in the U.S.

So China passed them, and will continue to pass them.

Michael Austin: And you gotta look at it. What's the penetration for vehicle usage in the United States? Ninety-eight percent. What's the penetration in China? Six.

I was gonna say four.

Michael Austin: It's six! Six percent. And that's what 1.6 billion people. The middle class has reached 30% – 30% wants a car. They don't have a dream of owning a home. Their dream is mobile. Their dream is getting a car so they can be mobile. And they'll do one car per family, that's still the goal. But one car per middle-class family is still 320 million cars yet to be sold. It would take me 80 years to sell 320 million cars in the U.S. and Europe put together. So China's the market.

Warren, coming in there, gave your company a brand of…a stamp of approval.

Michael Austin: Well, it was definitely a vote of these guys got a vision that I want to support. I want to see this vision go forward. He supported it and he took a risk, and his risk paid off big initially, and he's sticking with it. He's certainly made a good choice, and I appreciate his choice very much.