Chinese car maker BYD to offer pop-up talking robot in dashboard

Chinese automaker BYD's name stands for "build your dreams," and so far, BYD's dreams of mass-producing electric cars and hybrids have been far greater than their actual sales. That's not stopped them from taking a leap with their next model and building a pop-up robot into the dashboard that responds to voice commands. Someone's a big fan of EVE from "Wall-E."

This would seem like more of a joke if BYD wasn't one of the more established players in the Chinese auto industry, with investment from Warren Buffett and a partnership with Daimler AG. Set for an unveiling next week at the Beijing Auto Show, BYD's Qin plug-in hybrid sedan follows the failure of its F3DM -- a plug-in hybrid BYD had once sought to bring to America, but only ended up selling 80 copies of in China.