Yulon's LUXGEN EV Adopts AC Propulsion's Core System

Taipei, Sept. 23, 2009 (CENS)--Yulon Group president Chen Kuo-rong recently announced that his group's LUXGEN own-brand electric car is the third partner for AC Propulsion Inc., a major California-based electric-vehicle solution provider, following Mercedes-Benz and BMW of Germany.

At a carbon-reduction promotion event held by the Taipei County government, Yulon publicly demonstrated its first LUXGEN electric vehicle (EV) developed on a seven-seat multi-purpose van (MPV) platform for the first time.

Chen also announced that Yulon would push the electric versions of all the scheduled sport utility vehicle (SUV), large sedan and sub-compact car models under the LUXGEN logo.

According to forecast made by local DRAMeXchange Tech. Inc., worldwide shipments of pure EVs would reach two million units in 2012, including 600,000 such vehicles equipped with lithium-ion batteries. The shipments are expected to double to 4. 5million units in 2015, when lithium-ion models account for 4.0 million units, creating huge market revenues.

Invited by the Taipei County government, Yulon's LUXGEN EVs will join a demonstration operation project from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2010.

Chen, who is also the incumbent vice chairman of Luxgen Motor Co., Ltd., pointed out that energy-saving and carbon reduction have become global consensuses and one of the best solutions over next five to 10 years. AC Propulsion is also the technology partner with BMW and Tesla's EV products, Chen added. LUXGEN EVs' key power management system would be in the same specifications as that in BMW MINIe and Teslas, Chen said, but would have upgraded version after mass production.

Currently, LUXGEN EV adopts lithium-ion batteries supplied by local E-One Moli Energy Corp. (Molicel), electric motors by Fukuta Elec. & Mach. Co., Ltd., power controller by Chroma ATE Inc. etc. All the companies are also key-parts suppliers to BMW and Tesla's EV products.

Yulon claimed that the LUXGEN EV is expected to be used in a demonstration operation project for one to 1.5 years so as to collect related information for final tuning. The EV's mass-production date would be decided in 2011 according to market conditions.