e-Taxis in ShenZhen Struggle to Win Mass Appeal

The China Shenzhen EV car pilot project could be replicated in other Cities, underpins China’s ambitious plans to put at least 500,000 electrical vehicles and Plug-in hybrids on
The road by 2015.
China is already the World’s biggest emitter of green house gases from burning fossil fuels and other human activities that scientist say are causing serious global Warning.
As the World fastest and Largest growing auto market, China. carbon footprint can only Grow.
Beijing ha pronounced the electric vehicles industry a top priority earmarking $1.5Billion annual for the next 10 years in the hope that it can transform the country into one of the leading producers of clean vehicles that why one of the reason by BYD has tremendous growth in 2008-2010. and Warren Buffet has placed a big hand in buying the shares of BYD.
However even with the China Government support and the popular support of e-taxi customer’s challenges remain for electric vehicles such as e-taxi to gain broader acceptance and widespread use.
Charging station are few and far between, repair shops are hard to find, and the car are expensive still. The interval between charge is still not much enough. Even after Government generously support and incentive, the Shenzhen e-taxi costs 80 percent more than the Volkswagen Santana that is running on street in Shenzhen.
The EV taxi is still too expensive and we ended up paying a lot more for VW Santana, even after Government Subsides, Said Du Jun, GM of PengCheng E-Taxi, the taxi operator participating in the project.
More and more Automakers such as local Dong Feng Motor Group, Co have pledged massive investment on greener vehicles; the global Makers such as Nissan and BWM are also working with Government to roll out their Leaf and E-mini respectively.
China has no comparable program in the United States as EV industry investment.
US Congress is considering a bill that would allocate $2.9B for a programme t help develop the infrastruture for widespread use of EV car.
German Cabinet agrees on plans in May to boost the Country’s sector with billions of euros in us subsidies, aiming to have 1 millions of the cars on the road by 2020.
Berlin’s move will double stat support for research and development to 2 billions euros through 2013.
ShenZhen Snob