The development of electric vehicles

At present, relevant departments are planning to introduce Strategic Development Plan of Emerging Industries (short for Development Plan), which will win an investment of 4 trillion Yuan from the national government. This is also another significant measure to revitalize the economy after the introduction of Revitalization Plan of Ten Industries. The source has said that currently Development Plan is being drafted, which is expected to be finished at the end of 2009 or at the beginning of 2010. It is known that strategic emerging industries include seven major industry such as new energy, energy-saving and environmental protection, electric cars, new materials, new medicines, bio-breeding and information industry.

Citing an undisclosed source from SOHU, there are three scientific bases for selecting these seven industries: first, their products are stable and have prospective market demand; second, they all have good economic and technological benefits; third, they can give impetus to the emergence of a number of new industries.

Correspondingly, Plan to Revitalize the New Energy Industry have been incorporated into the Development Plan to be published simultaneously because the new energy industry is listed on the strategic emerging industries. In the plan, the schematization for these industries has been significantly upgraded.

In order to further rationalize the new energy markets before the introduction of Development Plan, the National Energy Board is currently formulating an Industry Guidance aiming at wind power and solar energy can be developed to support the network. It is said that the guidance will be in involved in the electricity price and the grid mechanism.

Experts have pointed out that the new energy vehicle technologies China is developing include battery manufacturing, vehicle technique, supporting facilities and electric motor. Apart from the development of the electric motor, the other three fields are far from mature, especially supporting facilities including charging stations for the electric cars. The development of new energy vehicles will be impeded if these technical problems can not be solved.

At the same time, the electric vehicles have been set as the development direction of Green vehicles in Sino-US Joint Statement published recently. The Joint Statement have said the two sides welcome the launching of the Sino-US electric car initiative which will encourage several millions electric cars to be put in use during the next few years. The two sides have announced to start joint demonstration projects in more than ten cities and endeavor to develop common technical standards to promote the rapid growth of the industrial scale.

　　Enterprises have enthusiasm in electric vehicles

Among a series of the policies introduced in China this year, the intention to develop electric vehicles becomes more and more clear.

Restructuring and Revitalization Planning within Automobile Industry issued In March 20th proposed to form the production and sales scale of electric vehicles. Transform the existing production capacity and forming a production capacity of 500,000 new energy vehicles including pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles and hybrid vehicles of common type. The sales of new energy vehicle sales are to account for about 5% of the total sales of passenger cars. The Main passenger car enterprises should have certified new energy automotive products.

Interim Measures on financial subsidies for the Demonstration and Extension of the Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle issued in February 6th has determined to launch experimental work on the demonstration and extension of energy-saving and new energy vehicle in 13 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Changchun, Dalian, Hangzhou, Jinan, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Hefei, Changsha, Kunming and Nanchang, encouraging to use such cars in the public services areas such as public transportation, rental, service, sanitation and postal through fiscal policy, that is, groups promoting and using such cars should be given grants. Over the next three years, each year ten more cities will be developed and each city will introduce 1000 new energy vehicles for demonstration. According to Interim Measures, till 2012 the operational size of the national new energy vehicles should be accounted for 10% share of the whole auto market.

At the same time, local governments also have issued similar policies to encourage local enterprises to produce and sell electric vehicles. For example, recently Henan Province has introduced Ten Scheme on Electric Vehicle. Chongqing has introduced consumption-related policies to encourage individuals.

Under guidance of the above policies, the relevant enterprises are highly motivated to take the research and development of electric vehicles as a top priority of the strategic planning. Facing the temptation, even Aucma, king of the freezers, has announced to enter into the national electric car market.

　　Three setbacks to the development of electric vehicles

All along, the battery life on a single charge mileage, charge time, service life is seen as the greatest bottleneck of the commercialization of electric vehicles. However, many experts within the industry believe that our lithium iron phosphate battery is taking a leading position in the whole world. However, the unreasonable network construction of charging stations becomes the bottleneck to the development of electric vehicles.

Because of the restrictions of charging stations, currently our electric vehicles in demonstration can only run on specified routes. Even the furthest advanced electric car technology is equivalent to nothing once the infrastructures, especially the charging stations are not adequate. “If charging stations of the electric vehicles are as many as that of PetroChina and Sinopec, Chinese auto market must be dominated by electric vehicles.” Wang Chuanfu, King of Battery also holds the opinion the biggest problem hindering the industrialization of the electric vehicles is that charging stations can not be universal.

At present, the domestic pure electric vehicles mainly use lead-acid batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries and lithium-ion batteries. The price of a set of lead-acid battery is between 7,000 to 8,000 Yuan. The costs for an electric car to drive 30,000 kilometers are almost equal to that of common fuel cars. Although the a set of lead-acid battery is cheap than a gasoline engine, it has only been widely used as venues cars whose speed are less than 50km per hour, as well as golf carts garbage trucks and newspaper delivery car since it is too cumbersome and its charging time is long.

Compared to lead-acid batteries, Nickel-metal hydride battery and lithium-ion battery have a longer cycle life and longer driving range. However, they also face the disadvantage of high prices and technological immaturity. At present, the technologies and costs of pure electric vehicles’ battery remain insurmountable obstacles even within the whole world.（translator: Yalong/ Jessie）

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