The B2B platform for full-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: Events News

The SAE International held its first Vehicle Battery Summit in China. Among the presentations given, cars21.com has chosen several to present to our readers, starting with an expert view on the development of electric vehicles in China.

250 Chinese and international experts mostly from OEMs, battery suppliers, material suppliers and service provides as well as consultants, assembled at Shanghai from 1-3 September 2010 to discuss battery development and related issues.

Mr. Ouyang Minggao, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy Department at the Tsinghua University and involved in Energy Saving & New Energy Vehicles in the Chinese State 863 Plan, gave an overview of developments and initiatives in the Chinese electric vehicle market.  

Impressive growth rate

The Chinese automotive market is growing fast. Since November 2009, China is the biggest auto market in the world in terms of sales. And still growing: the passenger car population is projected to grow from currently 52 million cars to 171 million in 2020, to reach 293 million by 2030.

There is a huge opportunity for EVs to secure an important market share, especially as along with an increasing integration of renewable energy sources, electric vehicles fit nicely into the Chinese governments efforts to institutionalise sustainable development. Taking e-bikes into account, China is, after all, already the largest global market for electric vehicles and has the political will to massively introduce EVs in public and private transport.

Also, since June 2010, the Chinese government offers subsidies to the residents of the selected cities Shanghai, Hangzhou, Changchun, Shenzhen and Hefei. They receive 60,000 yuan ($8,800) when buying an EV and as much as 50,000 yuan ($7,320) when buying a PHEV. That is a subsidy of over 50% of the purchase price!

This is substantial financial support, however it has to be considered that the Chinese customer is still very price sensitive and that conventional cars of similar vehicle type cost a lot less. 

Technology roadmap

The Chinese government sees new energy vehicles as a means to reduce the heavy dependency on oil imports (China is after the US the biggest oil consumer worldwide, with the automotive sector accounting for 60% of consumption) and to achieve important CO₂ emissions reductions by 2020.

The Chinese government has based its strategy for Chinese New Energy Vehicles on two pillars:

• evolutionary: optimise existing vehicle energy power-train systems and increase energy efficiency of cars;
• revolutionary: develop new types of vehicle energy power-train systems in new types of vehicles;

The aim is to achieve energy savings while at the same time

• establish a technology platform and realise key technology breakthroughs, leapfrogging some evolutionary steps in automotive development;
• establish a R&D platform to further innovation and develop standards;
• establish a product platform to cultivate industry eco-cluster and promote industrial development in the electric mobility field;

China intends to move from advanced ICE to hybrid engines and onto plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs). There will be a push to downsize these vehicles, equipping them with lithium batteries and in-wheel motors and charging them with household power. The belief is that the small size of these little PHEVs will also help their large-scale commercialisation.

Drive technology and energy diversity will be facilitated by a common platform for gas fuel vehicles and electric vehicles comprising

• a gas fuel vehicle energy source platform
• hybrid vehicle powertrain platform
• an electric vehicle chassis platform

The Chinese are advancing fast: by the end of 2008,1,796 patents based on research in the framework of the ‘Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle’ Program had been submitted, including 940 patents for technological inventions.  

Demonstration projects

In no other country, consumers are exposed to electric mobility on such a large scale. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, people were riding on full electric buses. At the current World Expo in Shanghai, half a million daily visitors have a chance to use full electric vehicles, manufactured locally by the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC).

The most impressive project, however, is the “10 cities -1000 vehicles” Demonstration Program. Initially intended to be carried out with 1,000 new energy vehicles in 10 selected cities, the project has been such a success that for the coming year the number has been increased to 25 cities and 10,000 vehicles, with plans to add 10 more cities every year.

Industry prospects

China is carrying out the industrialisation of New Energy Vehicles in three steps:

• from 2008 on, demonstration of HEVs, EVs and FCVs (fuel cell cars) in public transportation (60,000 vehicles)
• from 2010 on, gradual roll-out of New Energy City Bus, Micro/ Mild HEVs and Mini/ Small EVs
• from 2015 on, gradual deployment of EVs, PHEVs and FCVs

Again, the scale is impressive with tens of thousands of these New Energy Vehicles on China's roads already in 2010, over a million by 2015 and over ten millions by 2020!

This great number of New Energy Vehicles will need an infrastructure to move freely around the country and China has plans to install 2,000 charging & battery switching stations as well as 4 million charging piles and a smart grid to handle vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and vehicle-to-home (V2H) communication.

The Chinese government sees battery swapping as attractive technological option and has agreed on a national initiative to support the implementation of battery swapping infrastructure. The first of these battery swapping stations will by the way be officially presented to the public at the EVS25 this November in Shenzhen. cars21.com will be there and report.

International cooperation

Both at the 2nd EV Li-ion Battery Forum in Beijing last week and the SAE Battery Summit in Shanghai this week, there were many calls from Chinese industry and government advisers to work with international companies in the field of electric vehicles.  

China has already established two technology agreements with Germany and the US to advance research on electric vehicles.