Green Car Advisor
Chery
November 20, 2009
Several Plans Involve Greater Cooperation With Taiwan in EV Development
Here's a roundup of news out of China as that country tries to outplay the competition in the electric vehicles game:
Next at Bat
Mainland automaker Chery Automobile is expected to announce soon its plan to establish a global electric vehicle R&D center across the straight in Taiwan.
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Electric version of Panda sedan from China's Geely Automobile reportedly is being built in Taiwan.
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The China Economic News service says sources in Taiwan told it the Chery R&D facility would be built at the Green Energy Intelligent Vehicle Innovation Park in Taiwan's Changhua Coastal Industrial Area.
You're forgiven if you didn't know Taiwan had an EV development complex. We didn't either.
Turns out that the Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs is extending incentives for manufacturers of EVs and related components to establish their operations in and around the innovation center.
Not only that, analysts at IHS Global Insight say Taiwanese automaker Yulon Motor has already unveiled an EV of its own - the Luxgen EV Plus - and is set to work with China's Geely Auto on an electric version of the Geely Panda subcompact.
Chery has its own alliance with a Taiwanese contract car builder - Prince Motors - that assembles Chery autos in Taiwan and is likely to be involved in the new electric vehicle research center.
Heading for First
Automakers in Taiwan and China are expected to announced at a joint conference next week plans to team up to build 45,000 electric cars a year on the island by 2015, with about 30 percent slated for export.
The announcement, according to the Chinese auto parts industry news service gasgoo.com, is expected to come during a Nov. 24-25 "Bridge-Building" conference designed ot help bolster business ties between China and Taiwan.
On Second
A group of ten Chinese automakers have formed an alliance to jointly develop electric vehicles and related components, according to a report in Automotive News China.
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- John O'Dell November 20, 2009, 6:00 AM
- Categories:
- BAIC, BYD, Chery, China, Dongfeng, Hybrid, Plug-ins and Electric
- Technorati Tags:
- Chinese EV Developments
, Electric Cars, Taiwan EV Development
November 16, 2009
Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp. has unveiled its first self-developed electric vehicle, joining domestic rivals to tap potential demand for clean-energy cars.
The zero-emissions model, known as the BE701, is capable of going 120 miles between charges and has a top speed of 100 miles an hour, BAIC said in a statement over the weekend.
The company did not provide a timetable for mass production of the plug-in BE701.
BAIC reps disclosed details of a new clean-energy-vehicle development and manufacturing facility it had just set up, involving total investment of $334 million. The funding would come from the government and other sources, the statement said without elaborating.
The facility, just outside Beijing, will be able to make 50,000 electric vehicles and 100,000 hybrid models, it said but did not specify the timetable.
BAIC, a partner of Daimler AG, meanwhile, has set up a company focused on clean-energy vehicles only. It has said it expects to make 20,000-40,000 vehicles a year starting in 2011.
Other domestic automakers, such as Chery Automobile and BYD Co., are also investing in "green" cars.
Chery unveiled in February its self-made electric car, the S19, which it said was capable of going 75 miles between charges and has a top speed of 75 mph.
BYD Auto, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-listed rechargeable battery maker, launched its plug-in hybrid car, the F3DM, in China late last year.
Additionally, BYD has announced plans to ship the e6, an all-electric crossover, to the United States next year. That vehicle go reportedly go 250 miles per charge.
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- Scott Doggett November 16, 2009, 1:37 PM
- Categories:
- BAIC, BYD, Batteries, Chery, China, Emissions, Fuel Economy
- Technorati Tags:
- BAIC BE701
, BYD, Chery, China, Electric Car, Electric Vehicle, EV
November 10, 2009
China's ministry for standards has approved nationwide use of methanol as a motor vehicle fuel as the petroleum-guzzling country attempts to curtail its appetite for crude oil.
Methanol, or methyl alcohol - a popular fuel for high-powered drag racing cars in the U.S. - is most commonly produced from natural gas but can be made from coal or wood waste. One of its common names, in fact, is wood alcohol.
The Chinese standard permits it to be mixed with gasoline in blends of up to M85, or 85 percent methanol, 15 percent gasoline.
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Methanol from China in stoppered sample bottles.
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The fuel once was popular as a gasoline alternative in the U.S., but rising prices even as gasoline prices were falling killed interest in methanol in the mid 1990s and it since has been replaced in the U.S. by ethanol.
Methanol also can be produced from coal, which China burns in huge quantities to fuel its power plants.
China is actively encouraging use of alternatives to oil including solar power, hydrogen fuel cells and alternative fuels such as methanol.
It also sees the clean-burning fuel as a way of reducing the killer air pollution in many of its cities.
Geely Holdings, one of the country' largest automakers, already has developed flex-fuel methanol-gasoline systems and Chery Automobile is working on similar systems, according to analysts at IHS Global insight.
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- John O'Dell November 10, 2009, 10:50 AM
- Categories:
- Alternative Fuels, Chery, China, Methanol
- Technorati Tags:
- Alternative Fuels
, Biofuels, China Appproves Methanol, Flex Fuel
April 9, 2009
Add Nissan to the list of automakers (including Chongqing Changan Auto, BYD, Brilliance, Chery, Dongfeng and SAIC) that are intent upon plugging into the rough-and-tumble Chinese market for hybrid-electric and battery-electric cars.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Nissan is negotiating with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to create a pilot electric-vehicle program in Wuhan, a city in central China with nine million residents.
The deal is unusual, the Journal reports, because Beijing typically doesn't forge such partnerships with foreign companies. The newspaper reported that the deal, which calls for Nissan to contribute cars and help create a recharging network, could be completed as soon as Friday.
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- Greg Johnson April 9, 2009, 11:49 AM
- Categories:
- Alternative Fuels, BYD, Chery, China, China, Dongfeng, Emissions, Fuel Economy, Hybrid, Hydrogen, Natural Gas, Nissan, Plug-ins and Electric
- Technorati Tags:
- Chinese Hybrids
, Electric Vehicles, Legislation, Nissan
February 23, 2009
Chery Automobile has unveiled its first self-developed plug-in electric vehicle, the S18, and the Chinese automaker has rival BYD squarely in its sights.
This news comes courtesy of our sister site, Edmunds.com's Inside Line. According to its report, the zero-emissions S18 is powered by a lithium-ion phosphate battery, can run up to 93 miles on one charge and has a maximum speed of 75 mph.
Chery said the battery can be fully charged in four to six hours using a standard household electrical outlet. Specially designed charging devices let owners get the car 80 percent charged in only 30 minutes.
A Chery official said the model will be on sale in the market within a year, priced at about $14,600. The first vehicles will be provided to government institutions for trial use.
Chery, which launched a prototype hybrid last month that could save up to 10 percent on fuel consumption, also plans to launch a midlevel hybrid this year.
Chinese carmakers are racing to launch new-energy vehicles in the wake of a central government decision to put 60,000 new-energy vehicles on the roads nationwide by 2012. To that end, the government is offering subsidies of up to $36,500 to consumers to encourage them to buy hybrid, electric and fuel-cell vehicles.
Besides Chery, nearly all of China's major automakers have invested heavily in new-energy vehicles. BYD launched the world's first mass-produced hybrid electric vehicle, the F3DM, in December.
Only time will tell which Chinese EV will make it to the U.S. first.
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- Scott Doggett February 23, 2009, 12:05 PM
- Categories:
- BYD, Batteries, Chery, China, Emissions, Fuel Economy, Plug-ins and Electric, Tax Incentives
- Technorati Tags:
- BYD
, Chery, China, Emissions, EV, Fuel Economy, Inside Line, Lithium-ion, Plug-in Electric Vehicle, S18
February 10, 2009
China has taken steps in recent years to change its reputation as a mass polluter to an environmentally sensitive country.
Its efforts started with a massive Beijing clean-up operation for the Olympics, followed by a $175 billion countrywide clean-up and the closure of some particularly dirty coal power plants.
Soon the country will offer subsidies to the residents and businesses of 13 large cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, who purchase hybrid cars, trucks and buses, or vehicles that run on electricity, liquefied petroleum gas or compressed natural gas.
If the subsidy program succeeds, it might be extended to the rest of China.
Although the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and the domestically produced and recently released BYD F3DM are available in China, fewer than a 1,000 hybrids cars were sold in 2008.
That number will likely change as China produces more hybrids, which are much less expensive than the Japanese hybrids. The size of the subsidies have yet to be announced.
So far, only two Chinese carmakers - Dongfeng Motor and Great Wall Motor (its Kunna EV is pictured) - have announced plans to make electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles.
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- Scott Doggett February 10, 2009, 1:37 PM
- Categories:
- BYD, Chery, Dongfeng, Emissions, Great Wall, Honda, Hybrid, Natural Gas, Plug-ins and Electric, Tax Incentives, Toyota
- Technorati Tags:
- BYD F3DM
, China, Dongfeng Motor, Great Wall Motor, Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Prius
November 17, 2008
Chrysler's plan to bring small, fuel-efficient cars made by China's Chery Automobile Co. to North America may be dead, according to a report in today's Automotive News
(subscription required).
Last year, Tom LaSorda, Chrysler's CEO at the time, touted a deal in which Chery would supply small cars such as the one pictured here to Chrysler.
The two companies were scheduled to start bringing cars to Mexico this year. But now, neither company is talking about the deal. And a source says the program is on hold.
"I wouldn't place much hope on it," a former Chery executive familiar with the Chrysler deal told Automotive News. "Both companies have their own problems to deal with, and both have run out of money."
He said a major obstacle was the substandard quality of Chery's cars. "Chery knows there is no way for these cars to meet the safety and emission standards of the U.S. market in the near future," the former executive said.
Chrysler and Chery never offered a public timetable for the arrival of Chery-made cars in U.S. showrooms. In a May interview with Automotive News, LaSorda said plans for Chery's U.S. debut were having difficulties.
"We need small cars," said LaSorda, who now is Chrysler's co-president. "Chery's cars are still not ready for that exposure into these markets."
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- Scott Doggett November 17, 2008, 11:15 AM
- Categories:
- Chery, China, Chrysler, Emissions, Fuel Economy
- Technorati Tags:
- Automotive News
, Chery, Chrysler, Fuel Efficient
