We wrote before on the Great Wall Electric Vehicle that was planned to be made from the infamous Great Wall Peri:
According to reports, the Peri EV, will be able to reach top speeds of 130kph, and will also be able to reach a 70% charge within ten minutes. The Peri EV will also be able to travel 180km on a full charge, thanks to its, currently unknown, Li-ion batteries.
Are Great Wall stepping into the Electric age? It certainly seems so. China Car Times firmly believes that China will be the one that kick starts the alternative fuel age. A massive population who need to move, but slowly cant afford gas prices anymore will most certainly start the alternative fuel revolution.
The Great Wall Peri EV is expected to be shown off at the Beijing Auto Show next week.
Kick starting the alternative energy world? What are they going to use? Coal?
Electricity has to be produced from something and unless you go nuclear in a big way then it’s probably going to have to be from non-renewables.
Biofuels need large tracts of land to grow them. China is having enough problems producing food never mind about fuel as well.
Mark,
I think the Chinese will crack the electric car, they just have to, its either electric or hydrogen. The problem is how to regulate it:
1) The Government wont want everyone plugging in at home during summer months - Shanghai already has mass electricity shortages every summer
2) How to make the batteries charge up fast enough, pref within the same amount of time it takes to fill your tank with gas.
3) Reasonably priced batteries.
Until 1, 2, and 3 are solved, China wont embrace the EV for domestic use, but will happily make them for foreign demand. Perhaps cheap hybrids will be a short term solution, but ultimately, the PRC will lead the way once they’ve sorted the electric supply problem. They are building a string of new nuclear reactors right now, windfarms (Xinjiang has plenty of windmills), solar (Rizhao is a model city for solar) and hydropower (china gets 15% of total elec from hydro!) are already being used in many places!
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Coal power is so 20th century, China will clean up its act soon enough. Despite coal being mined domestically for peanuts, its still a commodity that China has to pay world prices for, prices that have gone up several times in the past year alone. Coal was 105USD earlier this year, now its heading towards $130 range!
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Before you think im a tree hugging loony, I would like to point out that I’d happily drive a V8 automatic Jag any day of the week, to hell with the environment, ill buy new lungs!
As for the food problem - making fuel from grains is a daft idea. Making diesel from waste oil - especially all that oil being wasted in Chinese restaurants as you read is an excellent short term idea, along with hybrids.
I’m not necessarily anti environment. However, I feel that a lot of the alternative technologies are in the wrong direction and overstated. As I said in my post you’ve got to get the electricity from somewhere and at the moment that’s largely going to be from non-renewables.
Hybrids are I think a bit of a con. The MSN UK motoring section did an interesting test a few months back of a Prius against a BMW 320D in real world driving. Guess which got the better fuel consumption? Hybrids at the moment are in many ways currently inferior to diesels (this may change in the future and what about a diesel hybrid?). However, if the Chinese government is not embracing diesel then maybe for China hybrids might be a good stop gap technology, but at a price premium.