27 Chinese cities to set up infrastructure to charge its electric vehicles

The Chairman of China’s state electric grid, Mr. Liu Zhen Ya, was quote as saying “This year we are going to work closely with electric car producers to speedup the development of electric chargign stations. Previously we only had electric car charging stations in Shanghai, Tianjin and Xi’an which were being used in trials, Tianjin’s electric charging network will expand to five stations within 2010″

The current investment for an electric charging station is around 3 million RMB. Also this year the State Grid will be working on a second generation network which will come online in around June, which will also have a sophisticated monitoring center.

It appears that electric cars are going to be the next big thing for China’s transportation system, and will ween China off the oil imports over the next ten years as reliance grows on the electric grid. Electric cars are bound to grow in popularity as soon as Chinese consumers learn of their money saving benefits.

The upcoming BYD E6 electric car can reach a full charge in 2 hours, and can travel for around 300km on that charge, and will need just over 23 rmb’s worth of electricity to reach a full charge. Compare this to the average traditional gasoline car that probably averages 8L of fuel per 100 km, fuel now averages 6.66 rmb in Beijing, thus traveling around 300 km will cost just over 159 RMB.

The Chinese State Grid has made a loss for two years running, and is pinning its hopes on expanding into the electric car charging industry alongside car producers. This will give China a relatively independent economy, free from the reliance on Middle Eastern oil which rises in price every day, and will hopefully make motoring more accessible to the nations interior.

Global battery demand is projected to increase about 5% annually through 2010 but China will record the largest gains and surpass the U.S. as the largest market share. The China Battery Industry Association predicts that demand for portable and green technology will fuel a 30% annualized growth in demand for lithium-ion batteries in China alone over the next five years.

Two of the fastest growing lithium-ion manufacturers in China are New Energy Systems Group (NEWN) and China Sun Group High Tech Co. (CSGH). Meanwhile, one large lead-acid manufacturer that could weather the storm is China Ritar Power Group (CRTP).

China Sun Group has developed a unique lithium iron phosphate battery that has improved safety, longer cycle and calendar life, high peak power ratings, and lower environmental impacts.

Utilizing a proprietary battery technology that BYD refers to as Ferrous-Iron, the company claims that the five-passenger e6 can go 205 miles between charges, double what upcoming electric vehicles from Nissan and Ford will be capable of. Just as important to surmounting one of the biggest issues holding back the acceptance of electric cars — long charging times — the e6 can be fully recharged in less than one hour when plugged into a high-voltage outlet, and a short 10-minute charge will replenish them to 50 percent.

www.chinacartimes.com