IT SEEMS like barely a month goes by without the launch of a new Chinese all-electric car, a battery-powered chariot that will transport you hundreds of kilometres before you take it home and plug it into your home charger, or stop at a soon-to-be-developed nationwide network of electric car charging stations.
Some of these new projects are more realistic than others, but a lot of these designs look doomed to end up as so much digital prototyping on the designer’s cutting-room floor. They lack the performance, or the looks, to make it beyond a few hundred units sold.
And they have to compete with some of the biggest names out there – everyone wants to get in on this market.
GM’s plug-in electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, is due to roll out in late 2010. Toyota also is pushing to get a plug-in electric vehicle to market next year, while Ford says it is five years away from producing them in significant numbers. Meanwhile, Mercedes and Evonik have done deals that may see electric Mercedes on the market by 2010.
But the Chinese, usually with US backing, keep stealing a march on international competitors when it comes to announcing potentially viable products.
China is unlikely to become more than a niche player in the battery-powered car market for a long while yet. The country is still struggling to come up with its own domestic brands. Xialis and Geelys have improved in quality in recent years, but they are unlikely to flood the roads in the West any time soon. However, a couple of projects are worth a look.
First out of the starter’s gate was Shenzhen-based BYD, famously backed by Warren Buffett and the first to launch a mass-produced hybrid that plugs into an electrical outlet, it started selling its first plug-in hybrid, the F3DM, last year.
Its background as a battery maker helped it break out early with a new model. Now it plans to introduce a few hundred of its all-electric sedan, the e6, in the US next year. The five-seat e6 takes between seven and nine hours to fully charge, has a 250-mile range and will initially retail at €279,036.
One of the latest players to emerge is the Sino-US joint venture, Coda, which will make an all-electric sedan. Coda Automotive employs just 41 people, and its car is a true hybrid in that it has licensed the chassis from Mitsubishi, is being assembled in China and has parts from a host of suppliers.
The focus on components is significant. Where China beats everyone hands down is on component manufacturing. A major link in Coda is the Tianjin-based Lishen Joint Stock Co, which will supply the battery for Coda that is due to launch in the US in the autumn of next year.
The group plans to spend some €500 million over the next three years to boost its lithium ion auto battery business.
“We have high expectations for the industry’s future prospects,” Richard Liang, Lishen’s vice-president, told the China Daily. “We aim to become the world’s leading manufacturer of a range of auto power products from cells to battery management systems (BMS),” he said.
The key to this investment is that they are focusing on the battery, and for the time being that is probably where the Chinese involvement in this business will be focused.
As it stands, lithium ion batteries are expensive and so electric cars are expensive, but China is a master at bringing down these kind of costs.
Liang reckons that lithium ion battery production could be earning the company as much as €200 million, about one-third of Lishen’s total income, within two years, especially as patent lawsuits settle down.