The plan, the brainchild of the former Silicon Valley software executive Shai Agassi, is an attempt to overcome the major hurdles to electric cars.

Tesla Motors is requesting $400 million in low-interest federal loans for an electric car that remains woefully immature and don’t-even-ask expensive.

The company, an electric car start-up, blamed the worsening financial and credit crises for the upheaval.

The billionaire investor announced that he had agreed to buy a 9.89 percent stake in BYD, which plans to sell electric cars in the United States by 2010.

The automaker said that it would put an electric car on sale in North America in 2010, putting it neck and neck with General Motors in the race to put a mass-produced electric vehicle on U.S. roads.

The commitment, announced Tuesday, will be the first by a major automaker to bring a zero-emission vehicle to the American market.