Electric Cars Accelerate Toward Market

Chinese scientists have made remarkable progress in developing pollution-free vehicles, now that the commercialization of such cars has been listed as a key part of the country’s science plan for the next decade, reports The China Daily.

In fact, the first experimental fuel cell-powered car has already been developed, laying a good foundation for introducing clean and environmentally friendly vehicles during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. According to Shao Liqin, an official of the ministry’s High-Tech Development and Industrialization Department, low-emission vehicles will be put into special transport service during the Games.

Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, in central China’s Hubei Province, and Weihai, in east China’s Shandong Province, have been selected as pilot areas to employ a number of electric buses. Several such buses are operating in Wuhan, the department said.

By 2007, commercialization of the electric buses should be realized in Beijing and Shanghai, and expanded to ten other cities by 2015, the 21st Century Economic Report said recently.

Air quality from pollution in major cities is a serious problem, with car emissions being a major contributor. To make the sky bluer and air cleaner in urban areas, the ministry wants Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and 13 other cities to introduce cars powered dually by high-performance, low-cost batteries along with a mix of cleaner-burning fuels in the next two years.

China first acknowledged the importance of electric vehicles in 1996 at an international exhibition on electric and clean-fuel vehicles. It has conducted technological exchanges with the United States, Germany, Japan, France, and Italy to push domestic development of such cars.

It developed fuel cells in the 1990s, with Dalian Chemistry and Physics Institute, Tsinghua University, Zhejian University and other research institutes cooperating.

China, which has to import oil to feed its growing appetite for energy, relies on coal to provide 75% of its power needs. Coal will continue to be a large part of the country’s energy supply, experts say.

Scientists have been working to develop natural gas powered cars. By last October, 190,000 such vehicles were running in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing and a dozen other cities, with 560 stations providing fill-ups.