Word: china
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Though Chinese automakers like SAIC and Chery have announced plans to produce electric cars, it is China's battery makers who have taken the first steps. BYD was already a major global battery producer, chiefly for mobile phones, when in 2003 it entered the car business by buying a defunct state-owned auto company. BYD proved a surprisingly quick study at automaking - its F3 sedan is a best seller in China, beating popular foreign brands - and now it has moved into electrics. The company is already selling the F3DM, a $22,000 Volt-style plug-in car with a backup...
...made by another Chinese auto company, Hafei Motor) will run for about $45,000 when it goes on sale in California in 2010. Coda expects to sell about 2,700 cars in the first year, with an annual sales target of around 20,000. For Coda's Czinger, the China connection allows him to keep his costs low and, more importantly, to manufacture on demand, which cuts his risk considerably. There's no other way a startup could compete - even one that just pulled in $24 million in venture capital funding and gave former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson...
...smart choice, especially as the cost of gas rises again. "The Chinese customer is just getting off a bike, so they're not worried about not being able to drive six hours without a recharge," says Philip Gott, a director for automotive consulting at research firm IHS Global Insight. "China has the chance to work out the kinks in its own backyard...
...China's Great Advantage There will be kinks. Chinese customers are likely to be just as sensitive to price as American ones, if not more so - and even China's low-cost manufacturers have yet to figure out how to make a reasonably-priced battery. Then there's the question of infrastructure. Few Chinese live in houses with easy access to plugs to power their cars, and there is little infrastructure ready for public charging. But none of that takes away China's late-starter advantage. Chinese companies don't have a hundred years of auto manufacturing to unlearn before...
...then end up dependent on foreign innovations," Obama told an audience in the economically depressed state of Indiana. "I want the cars of the future and the technologies that power them to be developed and deployed right here, in America." U.S. automakers will need to move fast - China is already pulling away. With reporting by Austin Ramzy / Tianjin...