Electric Cars Flop in China

Posted: April 25, 2012 Category: Blog, General, Industry News

With a large chunk of the world’s people residing within its borders, China is definitely a big target to get citizens on board with electric-powered transport. But with the less-than-stellar projections for clean-energy vehicle sales, adoption is anticipated to be a slow process. The Beijing Auto show will showcase 88 of these vehicles in hopes of integrating them into regular use among the Chinese population.

The nation has set its sights on getting over 5 million clean cars on the roads by 2020 and has vowed $14 M worth of funding towards this goal. This number is a far cry from the 10,000 to 20,000 currently on the streets in China, so automakers have a big job ahead of them if they wish to ramp up sales in the coming years. Subsidizing the cost has still yielded disappointing numbers, and electric vehicles still fail to present an attractive offer compared to traditional cars.

Despite the nation’s objectives, analysts believe widespread sales will only begin to occur in 2020 when the price gap between electric and traditional vehicles is significantly reduced. Until then, carmakers are taking a cautious approach to determining when demand calls for mass production.

The Beijing Auto Show will take place from April 27- May 2.

Via NY Daily News

Photo courtesy of mariordo59

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