General Motors said Tuesday it will develop electric cars in China through a joint venture with a Chinese automaker, and will transfer battery and other electric car technology to the venture, Economic Times reported.
General Motors, which is already the largest foreign maker of conventional vehicles in China, is keen to help define the emerging generation of green-energy automobiles.
The state-controlled Chinese auto industry is eager for expertise from General Motors, an acknowledged global leader in electrical car technology.
The Tuesday’s announcement was being made as the Chinese government was putting pressure on foreign automakers to transfer electric car technology to joint ventures in China.
But GM took pain to say that its joint venture agreement was not connected to its plans to begin importing its new US made Chevrolet Volt electric cars to China this year.
General Motor vice chairman, Stephen J Girsky said, “They are not linked.” He also said that Chinese government had not requested the transfer to China of specific technologies from the Voly, and that GM understood that Volt will not be eligible for the generous consumer subsidies China offered buyers of clean-energy cars.
Instead, he said, GM’s decision to develop electric cars in China would be part of the company’s effort to improve the technical capabilities of its joint ventures in China, as the country’s car buyers became more demanding.
General Motors holds minority stakes in joint ventures in China that sell more cars each year than GM sells in the U.S. "This is not a political decision today," Girsky said. "It's a business decision."
The new electric car development effort will be through one of several joint ventures that GM already has under China’s biggest auto company, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.
The joint venture is the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, which is in Shanghai and has already helped develop the Buick LaCrosse eAssist now on sale in the US and China.
The LaCrosse is a so-called mild hybrid in which electric motors help increase the fuel economy of a vehicle that relies mainly on a gasoline engine.
General Motors has been the leader in electric car technology, as many other automakers have been more interested in hybrids.
GM’s EV1, a predecessor to the Volt, was a technological success when introduced in 1996, but a commercial failure by the time the company stopped leasing it six years later.
GM restricted the car to leasing, rather than the sales, partly to discourage foreign automakers from buying it and shipping it home to disassemble and copy.
The new Chevrolet Volt, made Hamtramck, Mich, is General Motors biggest bet on a commercial plug-in hybrid car. General Motors Company is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world’s second-largest automaker.
