Skip to main content

Chinese white paper explores new business model for electric vehicles

China’s State Council has released a white paper that explores the possible business development model for electric vehicles in the country. After comparing the differences between electric and conventional gasoline vehicles, the white paper points out the market barriers faced by EVs in China: limited range when compared to gasoline, high cost, slow charging and insufficient charging stations The paper argues that China needs to develop an innovative business model to overcome these market barriers since t
October 11, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
China’s State Council has released a white paper that explores the possible business development model for electric vehicles in the country.

After comparing the differences between electric and conventional gasoline vehicles, the white paper points out the market barriers faced by EVs in China: limited range when compared to gasoline, high cost, slow charging and insufficient charging stations

The paper argues that China needs to develop an innovative business model to overcome these market barriers since the technical barriers cannot be solved immediately, and supports an approach whereby a battery swapping model and an electric vehicle rental network combined could provide the means to overcome the market barriers that electric vehicles currently face in China.

The paper maintains that battery swapping is suitable for the Chinese market and can potentially overcome electric vehicle weaknesses of slow charging, high initial cost and limited range, provided sufficient battery switch stations are available.  An EV rental network in cities is the preferable solution for reducing initial cost of purchasing electric vehicles, and could optimise EV utilisation.

The paper points out the potential for electric vehicles to be mass marketed in China, an argument supported by the successful e-bike market in the country.  Unlike many western counties, electric bikes are not niche products but widely used in China, where there were already 120 million e-bikes on the road by the end of 2010. The same success story could be attainable in the EV market.

Related Content

  • Dynamic Message Signs : Don’t replace, refurbish and upgrade
    August 12, 2015
    Refurbishing old dynamic message signs can save money and increase technical capabilities as David Crawford discovers. Evidence is growing on both sides of the Atlantic of the scope for retrofitting old or technically out-of-date dynamic message signs (DMS) with new electronic equipment, to save on the costs of installing full-scale replacements. In the last four months of 2014, a number of US states progressed programmes that achieved savings of more than US$1.75 million (€1.56million).
  • Cable cars come of age in trans-continental expansion
    April 30, 2015
    David Crawford explores a high-level option of public transport. Sharing its origin with that of ski lifts at winter sports resorts in the European Alps, urban aerial cable transport is attracting growing interest as a low-footprint, low-energy alternative to conventional public transport that can swoop over ground-level traffic congestion.
  • Changing perceptions and going green with ITS
    May 26, 2022
    Entrants to the ITS (UK) Essay Award were asked to write about innovative application of ITS solutions to achieve decarbonisation goals. First-year apprentice Leora Wilson, who studies at Leeds College of Building as part of her apprenticeship with Mott MacDonald, won the competition with this entry…
  • Diverse development of tolling business models
    April 25, 2013
    A diversity of tolling business models offers a wider toolbox of highway finance options, as the IBTTA’s Patrick Jones explains. The business models for America’s tolled highways have gone through several different evolutions over the last 75 years, reflecting a succession of shifts in transportation policy and politics, financing and funding models, urban patterns, customer needs, and technology. And with more and more decision-makers expressing renewed interest in tolling, it’s that very diversity that ma