China and India take a lead in electric vehicle manufacture

By Julian Rollins for the Green Futures , guardian.co.uk

Electric car production: workers assemble a Flyer car at the BYD plant in Xian, China. Photograph: Chien-Min Chung/Corbis

China is aiming to put more than a million electric vehicles onto the road each year by 2015, according to the state-run People’s Daily. It claims that new plans for the auto industry are about to be published and will make “new energy” – electric and hybrid electric – vehicles a national priority.

China’s long-term target is for 100 million new cars and buses to be produced each year by 2020, it says. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is pledged to invest more than 100 billion yuan over the next 10 years to support new energy vehicle production, “in order to make China the world’s largest new energy automobile production country”.

EV manufacturers in India, meanwhile, have had a boost in the shape of a government decision to extend support in their domestic market. The subsidy package is worth up to about £13.4 million between now and 2011 and will represent 20% of each vehicle sold to Indian customers.

Pawan Goenka, the automotive sector president of G-Wiz manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra, said the move will encourage development of alternative fuel technologies across India. But Goenka, who leads the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, said the government would have to continue supporting the country’s “technology leap” beyond 2011.