Mr. Wang, who was speaking at an industry conference in Tianjin (China) last week, said his company has held back from making a plug-in hybrid available to private customers due to a lack of consumer incentives and subsidies. "We're at a critical make-or-break juncture in our effort" to make electric vehicles mainstream, Mr. Wang told the conference. To help accelerate an adoption of all-electric vehicles "the government needs to play a key role and help us reduce their cost, especially for private buyers." He even warned that a persistent lack of government assistance could be the death of electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the marketplace because of their current high cost. Mr. Wang called for rebates, tax cuts, and policies to pave the way for more taxi companies to use electric cabs, among other measures.
Nevertheless, one senior Chinese industrial policy maker indicated at the conference that some Chinese officials have reservations about offering consumer incentives to promote electric vehicle sales. "Why do we need to provide subsidies and rebates for wealthy private buyers who would be the first in line to buy electric cars? That's a question some of us in the government are asking," said Chen Jianguo, a senior official at the National Development and Reform Commission, China's main economic planning agency.
Other officials were somewhat more enthusiastic. Wan Gang, China's minister of science and technology, told the conference that electric vehicles provided opportunities for China to "catch up with and exceed developed countries" in the auto industry. They are a "key driver for a new economy" for the world, but an especially strategic area of interest for China, he said. He pointed to the advantage of large deposits within China of lithium and other rare-earth metals that are needed to produce key electric car components, such as batteries and high-power electric motors, and improve their performance.
New-energy cars are "the way forward" and "a new source of growth" for China, and the country is therefore ready to offer more subsidies to accelerate related research and development activity, he said.
BYD, which makes both batteries and cars and is part-owned by a company controlled by American investor Warren Buffett, is gearing up to launch an all-electric battery car called e6 in China this year. The Shenzhen-based company already sells a plug-in hybrid car called the F3DM, with a small gasoline engine to charge its batteries. BYD began selling the F3DM to fleet customers, such as banks, in December but has not yet made it available to individual consumers because it is too expensive for most private buyers in China.
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