Much like the U.S., the Chinese public has been slow to adopt electric vehicles - either for personal use or for use in fleets like buses and taxi cabs. One Chinese automaker is trying a new approach to get people driving EVs.

According to the China Daily newspaper, BYD is offering zero down payments, as well as other incentives, to boost its EV sales. Specifically, the move is geared towards sales of BYD’s e6 taxi cabs and K9 electric bus fleets. China has around 500,000 buses and 1.2 million cabs, which together account for 1.7 percent of the country’s motor fuel consumption and produce 27 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions.

BYD’s EV strategy has already seen some success in China, despite its new sales push. The company has a taxi fleet of 300 electric cars, as well as a fleet of electric buses, in the city of Shenzen.

In order to get its zero down payment financing plan off the ground, BYD partnered with the China Development Bank and the China Everbright Bank.

If the initiative proves to be a successful sales strategy to encourage EV adoption, might we see similar schemes popping up in other countries as well?