CHINESE BUILDING ELECTRIC VEHICLES

To those who think without bias, plug-in vehicles are clearly the solution to much of what ails the U.S. in its auto industry, its environment and its energy consumption. This is the conclusion from thinkers as disparate as former CIA Director and McCain energy advisor Jim Woolsey to Hollywood personalities/greenies Ed Begley, Jr., and Alexandra Paul. All that is necessary is to make the transition.

Therein lies the rub. To transition, new manufacturing infrastructure is necessary and lots and lots of people who like their big gas guzzlers need to rethink their biases.

China faces neither obstacle. It has little in the way of manufacturing infrastructure to retool. And it has few drivers to re-educate.

For that reason, China may build the 21st century’s Detroit, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and electric vehicle (EV) mecca.

As reported recently by NewEnergyNews, a Warren Buffett company recently took a 10% stake in a Chinese EV maker. (See BUFFETT BUYS CHINESE ELECTRIC CAR COMPANY)

China's biggest competitor, long-term? India.

As if Detroit didn’t already have enough to worry about.

Here’s some good news for Detroit (which needs some): The expert on whose opinions these insights were developed pointed at India’s Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car (at ~$2,000), as an example of how new infrastructure can adapt to new designs more efficiently than existing infrastructure. But complications have forced scaling back of Nano production. That’s the downside of new infrastructure.

Footnote: China’s huge electric bicycle and scooter use contributes to innovation that will eventually produce better plug-in vehicles. (This was astutely chronicled by NewEnergyNews correspondent Forbes Bagatelle Black in EV CHINA: THE NEW WAY) It is a resource Detroit does not have, a market U.S. entrepreneurs have only barely penetrated.

The Chika EV - rage of this year's Paris Motor Show. (from BusinessWeek. click to enlarge)

China’s Electric Car Concept; At 2008 Paris Motor Show China unveiled its new Chika electric car concept
October 7, 2008 (BusinessWeek)
and
China seen as potential electric car hub
Braden Reddall (w/Gerald E. McCormick, Richard Chang), October 8, 2008 (Reuters)

WHO
Alex Molinaroli, president/Power Solutions battery unit, Johnson Controls Inc; Li Shi Guang Ming, designer, China electric car Chika; SAIC Motor Corp; Chery Automobile Co.;

WHAT
Electric vehicle (EV) world veteran Molinaroli believes China could take the lead in EV production and sales. Chika, a Chinese EV, won a lot of attention at the recent Paris Motor Show.

BYD Auto's E6 - now a Warren Buffett product. (from TreeHugger. click to enlarge)

WHEN
- 2007: Johnson Controls Inc’s lithium-ion battery joint venture with France's Saft made $4.3 billion in revenues.
- 2008: A Buffett subsidiary buys into BYD Auto and Chika is the hit of the Paris Motor Show.

WHERE
- Johnson Controls Inc’s Power Solutions battery unit has a Shanghai technical center.
- If 1 of 100 car buyers go electric, China and India will vastly out buy Americans and Europeans.
- Johnson Controls Inc is not at present interested in the Korean or Japanese plug-in markets.

WHY
- China’s ability to dominate EV production and sales is based on its room to grow new production capacity and its room to grow car buyers unbiased against EVs.
- China's government is expected to provide policies to facilitate plug-in vehicle development.
1.3 billion Chinese now rely on largely on bicycles and scooters.
- Golf cart-like EVs are likely to be the next large-scale step for Chinese consumers.
- The absence of gas stations in China not only opens the market for plug-ins but reduces the preference for gas-powered vehicles.
- Johnson Controls Inc’s Power Solutions battery unit has development deals with Chinese carmakers SAIC Motor Corp and Chery Automobile Co.
- Li Shi Guang Ming, designer of Chika, believes his design is an early indication of an original Chinese auto design that could reverse its "bootleg" image.

Chinese electric scooters and bikes charging up in Shanghai. (from MSNBC. click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Alex Molinaroli, president/Power Solutions battery unit, Johnson Controls Inc: "The next step up from [bicycles and scooters] is going to be some sort of vehicle, (but) it may not be a vehicle that would be acceptable in both Western Europe and the U.S….They can't go everywhere on a bicycle, and they all can't afford a $20,000 to $30,000 vehicle, but they have to move people around."
- Molinaroli, on the evolution of bicycles and scooters into golf cart-like EVs: "They'll look a lot different, the vehicles there, but it's going to put scale around a business much quicker there than it would in other parts of the world…"
Molinaroli, on emerging EV markets: "If one in 100 folks around the world end up in electric vehicles, just the sheer numbers say that China and India will have a real place in it…They don't have a legacy cost chasing them around."