China
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Maybe you can beat 'em and join 'em at the same time? That may be what General Motors is hoping with its announcement this morning that it would develop electric cars with its longtime Chinese partner SAIC. In Shanghai this morning, GM CEO Dan Akerson and SAIC Motor Corp. chairman Hu Maoyuan signed an agreement covering the joint development of a "new electric vehicle architecture in China." Vehicles emerging from the partnership will be sold under both GM and SAIC brands, and may be built outside China as well. Details and timing for these products? Those will be "announced later." China has...
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BYD E6 Electric Minivan Gets Chinese Makeover, But Will It Ever Get Here?This year hasn’t been easy for Chinese automaker BYD, thanks to abysmal performance on the Chinese stock-market, accusations of copyright infringement and a launch schedule that it just can’t seem to keep to. But over the summer the automaker has been busy, trying to turn its reputation...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
China Wants Volt's Electric-Car Secrets; GM Says No; Tug Of War EnsuesIt's been the official policy of the Chinese government-industrial complex for a while now that the country wants to dominate the electric-car business. While only a handful of highway-capable plug-in cars are sold today in China, the country's industrial overseers are nothing if not ambitious...
John Voelcker -
Is China Backing Away From Electric Vehicles?(EDITOR'S NOTE: This article offers another look at China's evolving plans for electric cars, also covered last week: China's Electric Car Plans Unrealistic, Focus Now On Hybrids) China's ambitious goals for electrification of its automotive fleet call for 10 percent of the cars expected to be...
IEEE Spectrum -
China's Electric Car Plans Unrealistic, Focus Now On HybridsChina appears to have abandoned its plans to gain an early advantage on Western carmakers by beating them to the market with mass-produced electric vehicles. As China develops more and more as a nation the demand for cars is increasing at a huge rate. The Chinese government had initially intended...
Antony Ingram -
China’s E-Taxis Are Not Quite As Slow to Refuel As You ThinkLast month, we brought you the story of the electric taxis that carry passengers through the busy City of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, based on a low-tech way of quickly swapping out empty battery packs for fully charged ones. At the time, we chose to focus on the process of battery swapping, covered...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
How many vehicles are there on Earth? We'd ask you to guess, except the headline above gives away the answer. According to industry trade journal Ward's, which added up both reported vehicle registrations and historical trends, the total crossed 1 billion sometime last year. The vehicles include passenger cars, light-, medium-, and heavy-duty trucks, and buses, but not off-road or heavy construction vehicles. The total at the end of 2009 was about 980 million, and with strong growth in emerging regions--particularly China, now by far the world's biggest car market--the number powered past the...
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Pushing For Greener Cars, China Raises The Bar On SubsidiesTo qualify for a $465 government-funded sales subsidy, China will now require automakers to use engines under 1.6 liters and achieving a minimum fuel economy of 37 mpg.
Kurt Ernst -
BYD e6 Electric Crossover Won’t Be Here Until Mid-2012We’ve known about Chinese firm BYD for some time now. In fact, its all-electric e6 was unveiled before the word Leaf became the name of an electric car. But despite unveiling a car long before many of its rivals, BYD won’t be bringing the e6 to the U.S. until the middle of next year. If...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
China Builds And Tests Its Own Robot CarThe select global fleet of self-driving cars has a new Chinese addition, and the developers claim the intellectual property behind it was created entirely at a Chinese university. After gaining early publicity five years ago, the robot-driven vehicle made the trip between the interior Chinese...
Talking Points Memo -
Say Hello To Electric Car Battery Swaps, Chinese StyleWe all know that one of the biggest challenges facing electric cars is the fact that recharging a battery pack is orders of magnitude slower than filling a gasoline car’s fuel tank. As battery packs have become more advanced, we’ve seen an increased use of rapid charging technologies...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric Cars Dirtier Than Gasoline Equivalents In ChinaEV fans are probably sick of arguing the case for electric cars whenever someone brings up the old "well to wheels" scenario. "Well, where does the electricity come from?" they ask. Familiar with it? Most of us have pre-prepared figures as to why EVs are cleaner, even considering the fuel burned to...
Antony Ingram -
Chinese media are reporting that an electric bus caught fire in Shanghai at noon on Monday. And this is apparently not the first such incident. A Reuters report indicates that at least one earlier incident has been reported in the Chinese press within the last three months. A local Shanghai blog, The Shanghaiist, showed photos of the burned bus. Reports conflict as to whether the bus was in service, or stationary and parked by the roadside, but no injuries were reported. The bus is one of a test fleet that uses ultra-capacitors to store energy from a network of charging points that top up the...
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BYD Fails to Electrify Chinese Stock Market, Gets a BuffetingChinese electric car and battery firm Build Your Dreams (BYD) has announced that its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange raised just $219 million, 65% of what the Warren-Buffet backed firm had hoped to raise. But was the $177 million delta between the actual money raised...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Could China’s Hawtai Supply Saab With High-MPG Clean Diesels?Saab's new deal with a fledgling Chinese automaker doesn't just mean a lifeline for the struggling Swedish automaker; it could over the longer term become a much-needed powertrain supplier—especially in the area of clean diesels. Through the deal that's almost finalized, Hawtai Motor Group...
Bengt Halvorson -
China Rigs Electric-Car Incentives Against Chevy Volt, Foreign CarsHere in the U.S. the government, both at the federal and state level, offers an array of incentives for eco friendly vehicles such as clean diesels, plug-in hybrids and electric cars. However, the U.S. isn’t the only major automotive market with such incentive programs in place. Over in China...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Chinese SUV Tries to Make it in U.S. Despite Taxi FireYesterday Dallas-based electric vehicle firm Green Automotive Company announced it was sending two of its all-electric Zotye electric SUVs to be tested for compliance with Federal Motor Safety Standards at independent engineering firm Roush Industries. But while GAC’s website promises it is...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Better Place Battery Swap Stations Head to ChinaWhat’s the best way to ensure that your electric vehicle technology gets adopted by as many consumers as possible? Take it to China, of course. That’s exactly what electric car infrastructure firm Better Place has done, with the announcement that it has signed a strategic agreement with...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
The big unknown in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions is China. It is industrializing at a rapid pace, and a burgeoning middle class has savings galore to spend on its first automobiles--including luxury European brands. By some estimates, the world's current 800 million vehicles will grow to as many as 2.5 billion by 2050. Virtually all the growth will come from developing nations, including China, India, Brazil, and Russia, with North America, Europe, and Japan staying static. In 40 years, 360 million vehicles Now a new study projects that China will have 356 million vehicles on the...
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BYD Presents Happy Results From Chinese Electric-Taxi TestAutomaker BYD is by far China's most aggressive when it comes to electric cars. It launched its F3DM sedan, the world's first production plug-in hybrid, back in December 2008--sales have been poor--and has been testing its all-electric e6 crossover with both taxi fleets in Shenzhen, China, and the...
John Voelcker -
Reviewer Drives BYD E6: Verdict? "One Trick Pony"Chinese automaker BYD, or "Build Your Dreams" has big plans. They had a strong presence at the recent 2011 Geneva Motor Show with a lineup of production electric cars both present and future, and the company intends to break into the U.S. market, never an easy task for a maker with little brand...
Antony Ingram -
Drive Report: BYD F3DM, Chinese Plug-In Hybrid Needs WorkChinese auto giant BYD is one of the world’s leaders in the field of hybrid vehicles, having been the first in the market with a mass-produced plug-in hybrid back in 2009--albeit in China only--and now with several small fleets of plug-in hybrid models here in the U.S. These are small-scale...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
BMW Working On 5-Series Based Electric Car For ChinaElectric car development is quickly proving to be a worldwide effort, with companies and research institutes from across the globe and in varying industries and fields forming partnerships and alliances in order to accelerate the roll out of zero-emission electric cars. The latest is BMW and its...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
2012 BYD e6 Electric Crossover To Cost $35,000, 200-Mile RangeLater today at the Detroit Auto Show, Chinese carmaker BYD will take the wraps off a new incarnation of the e6 crossover it's shown twice before. This time, however, it comes with an upgraded interior, a more powerful drive motor, and a price: $35,000 before incentives. The company hopes to offer...
John Voelcker