The Development of China's Alternative-energy Vehicle Industry

Hybrid propulsion systems and see as the most feasible choice right now

As everybody knows, big automakers all over the world have begun focusing on the development of environmentally friendly, energy-saving vehicles.

Toyota's Prius, Honda's Insight, and Fisker Automotive's Karma are all models with hybrid propulsion systems that combine electric motors with gasoline engines. Chinese automaker BYD is also working on more cost-competitive hybrid cars, and the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC) has poured about 2.9 billion renminbi (RMB, or Chinese yuan) into development of alternative-energy vehicles which are expected to go into mass production in the near future.

Thousands of alternative- or new-energy vehicles, including the ROEWE 750 hybrid car developed by SAIC, provided transportation services at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. In China, more plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and pure-electric or battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are expected to be ready for mass production next year.

New-energy passenger cars, including mainly BEVs and fuel-cell cars, are still in an immature stage of development due to technology bottlenecks and cost concerns, making hybrid propulsion technology more feasible and affordable at the present time. Hybrid cars, which are deemed by most industrial experts as the best alternative during the transition from gasoline power to pure electric vehicles, are expected to be a major focus of Chinese automakers.

The Xiamen King Long United Automotive Industry Co., a major maker of coach buses in China, has chosen hybrid buses as it top-priority products for export. The company's first batch of hybrid buses was shipped to Singapore last May, making Xiamen King Long the pioneer own-brand exporter of such vehicles in China.

A senior Xiamen King Long official reported that his company developed its first-generation hybrid bus in 2005 and is now working on fourth-generation models. The firm exported some hybrid public buses to Finland in 2010, and plans to promote its pure-electric buses in the global market this year.

Major Export Markets
Chinese-made hybrid vehicles now are popular in some major export markets, including Singapore, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. In 2010, for example, Xiamen King Long exported 151 hybrid buses to Peru, and the Shenzhen Wuzhoulong Automobile Co. signed a cooperation agreement with S.R.T. of the Philippines to for the shipment of hybrid buses to that market.

In January this year Foton Motor won a new order for 111 Euro-5 (new emission standard) BJ6123 hybrid buses from a customer in Taiwan, who also plans to purchase some Euro-5 long (eight meters) buses from the Chinese company. Foton Motor says that it aims to sell 150 to 200 eight-meter Euro-5s to Taiwan this year, along with about 400 pure-electric buses some time in the future.

Xiamen King Long said that it delivered a number of its XML6155 hybrid buses to Finland last year, breaking the long-held monopoly of the Scandinavian market by Volvo and Iveco products. After that delivery, the manufacturer claimed, more and more customers in South Africa, the U.S., and other countries are expressing an interest in buying from Xiamen King Long.

Another Chinese bus maker, the Higer Bus Co., exported its first batch of fuel-cell buses to Singapore in mid-2010, making it the first company to bring Chinese-made fuel-cell vehicles into the international market.

The Chinese central government's national electric-vehicle (EV) promotion plan, dubbed "10 Cities & 1,000 Units," which calls for each of 10 big cities to operate at least 1,000 BEVs, has been expanded to encompass 25 major cities.

According to data compiled by the city government of Kunming, the capital and largest city in China's southwestern Yunnan Province, the total distance traveled by 98 of its hybrid buses reached 515,000 kilometers in six months. Total diesel consumption was 163,000 liters, 10% less than conventional diesel-engine buses would have been able to achieve. The number of hybrid buses running in the city has been increased to several hundred, and is expected to keep growing. Each hybrid bus saves an average of about 3,000 liters of fuel and cuts CO2 emission by 112.5 tons per year.

L.T. Tseng, Toyota China's vice president, pointed out that new-energy vehicles are the trend of the future. From a long-term point of view, he said, the BEV has brighter prospects than other alternative-energy technologies such as fuel cells.

Currently, Tseng explained, it seems that BEV-related technologies still have a lot of problems to overcome, such as short cruise range, inadequate charging infrastructure, the heavy weight of batteries, and heat-dissipation in battery packs. Once these problems are solved, he said, development will speed up. Hybrids are the most feasible choice right now, Tseng commented, because they offer a platform for the incorporation of different combinations of electric motors with gasoline, diesel, or other-energy engines. They do not require drivers to change their driving habits. For these reasons, Tseng believes that hybrid technology will remain the mainstream propulsion solution in automobiles for the next 10-15 years.