Green Cars Face Challenges

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China produced 517,000 new-energy vehicles last year, and over 98 percent of them have been sold. That’s a growth of 51.7 percent year on year in the number of vehicles produced. Government incentives are believed to be the biggest driver – but the subsidies are so large that some manufacturers have been taking advantage of them by producing cheap “green” cars. Miao Wei, China’s industry and information technology minister, has warned that the Chinese new-energy vehicle industry is both overproducing low-end cars and lacks advanced technology. According to analysts, the industry has come to a turning point that focuses on the development of core technologies, such as batteries and smart technology. Otherwise it will end up with the same problem as the regular domestic car industry; big, but uncreative and backward.