Li Gang:boost market share in Small cars

【Announcer (Fang Maodong): Honored leaders and distinguished guests, good afternoon! I am very delighted to host this segment about the development of energy-saving and conventional vehicles. In recent years, more and more companies have intensified efforts to develop new energy vehicles; however, has the time of the new energy automobile really come? Currently there are still many issues are being resolved in the new energy automotive industry chain and related facilities are not yet mature, thus the development of energy-saving and conventional vehicles is still an important task for the smooth realization of the automotive industry. As discussed in the morning seminar, great attention was attracted by several leaders on new energy vehicles and environmental protection, and in the following section, we shall start discussions about the development of new energy vehicles. First of all, let me introduce the participating guests for this afternoon:

Li Gang, Director of Industrial Coordination Division, National Development and Reform Commission;

Ren Mengyan, Director of Pollution Prevention Division, Ministry of Environmental Protection;

Mr. Zeng Qingyuan, Vice President of Asia Pacific Sales and Marketing, United States TRW Automotive Holdings Corp

Mr. Wang Hongjie, Vice President of Cummins (China) Investment Co., Ltd.;

Mr. Larry R. Johnson, Transportation Technology R & D Center, the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory.

Having said that the conventional energy vehicles will continue to be in the dominant position in the near future, next let's welcome Li Gang, Director of Industrial Coordination Division, National Development and Reform Commission, to give us his speech.】

Li Gang, Director of Industrial Coordination Division, National Development and Reform Commission

Li Gang:

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon! I am very pleased to participate in this event. Continuous work has been carried out on automotive products on the three fronts of safety, environmental protection and energy conservation, and the national environmental standards of the European, American and Japanese automotive industry have already been transferred to a focus on the environment control of the greenhouse effect, but our country indeed has a long way left to go. The essence of greenhouse effect control should refer to energy conservation, which indicates that under the dual pressures of energy shortages and the greenhouse effect, China's automotive industry faces severe challenges to sustainable development, therefore in this segment our topic is the development of energy-saving and conventional vehicles, which is very meaningful. Although the new energy vehicles have great potential in energy saving and emission reduction, due to the lack of core technologies, not-yet-initiated infrastructure construction and short-term cost factors, the dominant market position of the conventional vehicles can not be changed in the foreseeable future.

First, energy-saving emission reduction is a major task. Giving priority to the development of environmentally friendly vehicles in the automotive industry is an inevitable choice in implementing requirements for energy-saving emission reduction, which is of important practical significance for the easing of tremendous pressure in energy-saving environmental protection at China's rapid entry into the automotive community, compliance with the new situation of the country's economic growth mode transformation, and achievement of good, fast, and harmonious economic and social development.

Second, the development of energy-saving compact cars is the key point to promote energy efficiency of conventional vehicles using traditional energy. We should be guided by the principle of broadening sources of income and reducing consumption, the latter having first priority, and pay attention to environmental protection principles. Under the premise of attaching great importance to the promotion and use of energy-saving technologies in the traditional energy sources vehicles, the technology of alternative fuel vehicles and the development of new energy vehicle technology will be the long-term development strategy of China's auto industry. For the choice of technology path, I think we should take into account both energy-saving technology and energy-saving structure to promote a comprehensive integrated energy-saving technical level and through the promotion of efficient internal combustion engine and efficient energy-saving technology to improve skills and focus on compact cars and energy vehicles in the product structure optimization and energy consumption reduction.

First, enhance the market share of small passenger cars, focusing on accelerating the development of passenger cars with displacement of 55 naturally aspirated liters to improve market share in passenger cars with small engine displacement, gradually expanding the use of direct injection and advanced engine technology, and forming a scale of small passenger cars with independent intellectual property rights with the conformability, safety, reliability, fuel economy and emissions indicators reaching international advanced level.

Second, moderate pressurization and enhance key technologies research of passenger diesel engine to increase the proportion of multi-functional diesel vehicles and to gradually expand the application scope of diesel passenger cars in the long run.

Third, actively develop hybrid vehicle technology, where the focus should be hydrogen-powered hybrid technology, and to encourage the engine automatically Kai-screen technologies.

Fourth, improve the technical level of gasoline engine. Strengthen research and application of the advanced technology, such as supercharger and direct injection and so on, focusing on the research and development of gasoline engines with 55 kilowatts per liter or higher in power, country 4 or higher in emission and no greater than 1.5 liters or 1.3 liters in displacement. Use comprehensive function flexible technology in the long run, enhance the promotion of the supercharger and direct injection technology, develop universal, variable-compression technology and military system compression ignition technology, and widely use energy-efficient components to produce the newly developed low-emission petrol vehicles up to the international level. As far as I know, the international new technology makes is expected to improve our petrol or diesel engine efficiency to more than 50, or even higher, 55, 57.

Fifth, reinforce research and application of core technology of the diesel engine, strengthening development of passenger vehicles with diesel engine of high-power, low-density, low-noise, low-emission, lightweight, 45 kilowatts per liter or higher in power, reaching country 4 or higher in emission, heavy-duty diesel vehicles should reach more than 30 kilowatts. New type diesel engine’s liter power reaches 40 kilowatts or more to gradually achieve the self-production of the key technologies and to realize the military system compression ignition technology in a broader range of applications.

Sixth, advance the research and application of transmission and drive technology. Focus on the development of advanced multi-file transmission. Priorities on development of automatic transmission box on heavy-duty trucks, above level-6 mechanical transmission box on passenger cars, automatic transmission box with double clutches, etc., and gradually realize the autonomy of above product R & D and production.

Seventh, promote the use of whole vehicle optimization techniques. Focus on improving the optimization technology level of the vehicle design and power system, gain the basic capability of whole vehicle optimization technique, promote the applications of energy-saving devices and smart technology such as special low-power optimization in power, electromagnetic fan clutch, loss of fuel consumption meter, inverter air conditioners and so on to gradually form a optimization capability of complete body design and power system.

Eighth, expand the scope of lightweight technology and use technologies of high-grade aluminum, plastic production materials, cast iron and other materials as well as new technologies such as laser-fight press and so on.

Looking at the international situation of energy-saving and environmental protection has become a focus of attention, the automobile industries in developed countries are exploring the appropriate technologies and encouraging the development of small fuel-efficient cars, the rapid development of energy-efficient small cars abroad is inseparable with government encouragement and support. Abroad, the popularization promotion of energy-efficient small cars is mainly through technical regulations and implementation of preferential policies for energy-efficient small cars. With the common attention of the whole society, in recent years China has successively adopted restrictions on unreasonable measures of small cars and implemented a support-small-suppress-big policy, fuel tax reform policy to stimulate small cars consumption. Sales of energy-efficient small cars are constantly upgrading with constant improvement of the product structure, but there are still restrictions about small cars in some areas. At the same time, many consumers still have the unscientific traditional concept of extravagance and waste, display of wealth and the pursuit of the luxury, ahead of consumption and over-consumption is still quite serious, therefore the development of energy-efficient small cars faces significant challenges.

Third, further encourage the idea of energy-efficient small car development. To support the development of energy-efficient small cars, the most important thing is to insist on the creation of a lasting and effective and complete and coherent policy system, I think there should be several aspects of these policies as below:

First, improve vehicle fuel consumption evaluation system, eventually increase the economy standards of automobile fuel, establish driving conditions in specific regions to China's actual situation, promote national standards, further improve in-line management system of vehicle fuel identifications and automobile fuel production, and enforcement of implementation of these systems to implement properly the management of the vehicle fuel consumption, power and others of the automotive products.

Second, gradually establish fuel consumption evaluation system to undertake comprehensive management for the production and products of automobile enterprises, and promote the optimization and adjustment of the product structure of automobile enterprises.

Third, set up energy-saving automotive technology projects and product directory as well as make dynamic adjustment to support R & D and industrialization of the key energy-saving technologies and products.

Fourth, in accordance with the principle of promoting energy-saving and emission reduction, optimal adjustment of the current automobile tax system should be considered, based on tax rewards and penalties standards in vehicle fuel consumption, increase tax fees to those below the standards and cut tax fees on those that reach the limited standards and preference margins for next phase.

National policy plays an important guiding role on the development of energy-efficient small cars, but the development of energy-efficient small cars need enterprise's own efforts including an active research and development on energy-saving technology, producing high-quality energy-efficient small cars. I believe that with the national policy guidance and the active efforts of the enterprises, energy-efficient small cars will make a faster and better development. Thank you!（Jianfei）

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