Skip to footer

Is the future of the electric car in China?

Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn told AP the car industry is carefully watching China to see how it decides to reduce emissions. When the Chinese do make their move, it will bring on 'the explosion of the electric car,' Ghosn said.

|
Carlos Barria/Reuters/File
A woman looks at a BYD E6 electric car during the 15th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition in Shanghai.
  • By Stephen Edelstein Guest blogger

China is the future of the electric car.

At least, that's what Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn believes.

Speaking to the Associated Press at the 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show, he said the car industry is carefully watching China to see how it decides to reduce emissions.

When the Chinese do make their move, it will bring on "the explosion of the electric car," Ghosn said. (His words, not ours.)

While no one wants exploding electric cars, it's not surprising that Ghosn is hoping for an increase in demand from China. 

Both Renault and Nissan have bet heavily on electricity as the ultimate alternative to fossil fuels.

Together, Renault and Nissan have sold over 100,000 electric cars, the majority of them Nissan Leafs.

Nissan sold 2,420 Leafs in the United States last month, a new high for the model, and will have sold about 80,000 globally by the end of this month.

Will China keep Renault-Nissan's electric car sales streak alive?

A vast fleet of electric cars is one of the main goals of the Chinese government's "new energy vehicle" policy, although how it will actually boost sales remains a bit of a mystery.

"New energy vehicle" originally meant electric cars, but the government revised the standard in 2011, shifting the focus to hybrids and other technologies that could potentially boost fuel efficiency.

At the time, the Chinese government set a goal of having one million new energy vehicles on the road by 2015. The bar was lowered to 500,000 vehicles in a revised version of the policy released last year.

While China has continually revised its goals to bring them more in line with reality, it hasn't given up on electrification altogether.

Just recently, it added new incentives on electric cars while largely ignoring hybrids.

Ghosn undoubtedly hopes things stay that way.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Is the future of the electric car in China?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2013/0924/Is-the-future-of-the-electric-car-in-China
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe