BIZCHINA / Top Biz News
Automakers go green in Shanghai show
(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-23 13:34
One experimental clean-energy car runs on natural gas. Another uses
ethanol distilled from corn. A third has a zero-emissions electric motor
powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
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These alternative vehicles were created not by a global automaker but by
China's small but ambitious car companies, which displayed them Sunday
alongside gasoline-powered sedans and SUVs at the start of the Shanghai
Auto Show.
At a time when they are still trying to establish themselves in
international markets, Chinese automakers are already investing in such
avant-garde research in a bid to win a foothold in the next generation of
technology.
"This is the tide of the industry. If you don't go with the tide, the
industry will pass you by," said Qin Lihong, a vice president of China's
biggest domestic automaker, Chery Auto, in an interview ahead of the
show's opening.
China's communist leaders are encourging the development as part of
efforts to cut pollution and rising dependence on imported oil and to
make this country a creator of profitable technologies.
Chinese manufacturers are getting help from foreign automakers in joint
ventures and from research alliances with Chinese universities and
government laboratories.
Beijing has made cleaner cars a policy priority, targeting the field as
one of 11 priority areas in a 15-year technology development plan issued
in February 2006. It promised grants and tax breaks to support industry
efforts.
The campaign embodies one of Beijing's strategies in technology
development: Pick new areas with no entrenched competitors so China can
make breakthroughs without huge costs.
While foreign automakers have a lead in conventional technology, "in new
energy we're starting from almost the same line," said Chen Hong, the
president of Shanghai Automotive Industries.
"So we believe we can catch up with other auto companies and make great
progress in developing new energy vehicles," Chen said.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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