China’s State Council has published a plan to develop the “new energy vehicle” industry, which includes EVs, PHEVs and fuel cell vehicles.

China’s State Council has published a plan to develop the “new energy vehicle” industry, which includes EVs, PHEVs and fuel cell vehicles. Saying that the next 20-30 years will be a “critical period” that will see the formation of a new global industry, the plan calls for the production of 500,000 plug-in vehicles by 2015, and 2 million by 2020.

Of course, governments set targets, objectives, etc all the time, but planners in the mobility industries may want to take a close look at this one, because China’s command economy might just get it done. The government intends to “guide” enterprises to increase investment in R&D in several key technology areas, including:

• Battery innovation, with a focus on system security, reliability and lightweight design
• Development of anodes, separators, electrolytes and other key materials
• Development of production, control and detection equipment
• New supercapacitor and battery combinations
• Electric traction motors and power electronics

The plan is quite detailed, even laying out performance targets that plug-in vehicles are to meet by 2015:

• Maximum speed of not less than 62 mph
• All-electric driving range of not less than 93 miles (for EVs) or 31 miles (for PHEVs)
• Battery power density of 150 W/kg, at a cost of 2 yuan/Wh ($0.31/Wh), with a cycle life of more than 10 years
• Electric drive system power density of 2.5 kW/kg, at a cost of 200 yuan/kW

The comprehensive plan seems to cover every issue related to sustainable mobility. It calls for related industries to share product development and patent databases, and to establish a common test platform; more new energy vehicle demonstrations; subsidies for private purchase of new energy vehicles; city-level pilots for performance verification; and battery recycling. Noting that China lags in recharging infrastructure (only a couple hundred public chargers are currently in service), the plan calls for the exploration of different business models for recharging.

Soucre: The People’s Republic of Chaina via Green Car Congress
Image: Renato Ganoza