New plug-in hybrid models are meant to attract a Chinese audience

China now offers a variety of incentives for plug-in and electric vehicles, making it an attractive market for foreign automakers looking to expand their electric-car lineup. 

|
Thomas Peter/Reuters/File
Andre Brown of Audi Japan presents the new Audi Q7 e-tron quattro at the 44th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo (October 28, 2015). Audi, along with other luxury carmakers, is interested in selling its electric vehicles to the growing middle class in China.

Between now and 2020, the three German luxury brands--Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz-- will collectively add more than a dozen plug-in hybrid models to their lineups.

The goal is to offer a plug-in hybrid version for almost all of their most popular vehicles, most with U.S. range ratings of 15 to 25 miles.

With a few exceptions, sales of these models in the U.S. are likely to be extremely low against those of, say, the latest Chevrolet Volt with its 53-mile range.

But these plug-in hybrids aren't meant first and foremost for the U.S.

Their focus is the Chinese car market, which now offers a variety of national, state, and local incentives for what are called New Energy Vehicles, basically any car that plugs in.

Both plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles fall into the category, but the former are expected to be far more popular than electric-only models.

Chinese maker BYD--which outsold Nissan, Tesla, and General Motors in plug-in cars last year--reports that plug-in hybrids accounted for more than 80 percent of its total of 62,000 sales last year. Battery-electrics were just 18.6 percent.

That's due to the much higher proportion of affluent Chinese buyers who live in apartment buildings, where home charging is far more challenging than in U.S.-style single-family homes.

Indeed, a plug-in hybrid Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan qualifies as a New Energy Vehicle.

So its owner can enjoy the lower fees, preferential registration, and other perks offered to NEVs in China's major cities--even if he never once plugs it in.

Closer to home, this issue was illustrated by the example of an early fleet of Chevrolet Volts offered for sale in July 2014 as used cars.

Their blended gas mileage was very close to the car's 37-mpg rating in range-extending mode, indicating they had rarely if ever traveled solely on electricity from the grid after being plugged in.

The company that bought the Volts for business use would reimburse employees for the gasoline they bought, as it turned out--but not for the electricity used to recharge the cars at home.

That meant that the Volts essentially ran full-time as hybrids, never as pure electric cars. And a Chinese S-Class may well do the same.

Still, German luxury marques--along with Cadillac as well--need to offer cars that newly affluent Chinese buyers both desire and can easily register and use in the most polluted cities.

Hence: plug-in hybrid variants of their volume vehicles.

This was confirmed last month by the head of Audi China, Joachim Wedler, as quoted last month by China Daily:

The New Energy Vehicle strategy for Audi is very clear: We now will deliver more [plug-in hybrids] to the market ... We have already launched A3 e-tron, now the Q7 e-tron, and the A6 e-tron in a long version.

Audi as a premium brand looks to fulfill the CO2 emission requirement by the Chinese authorities. We will deliver enough NEVs to the Chinese market, locally produced and imported.

From the customers' daily usage point of view, they need charging stations. We need to play our role in investing charging poles for NEVs with societies, communities, independent brands and the government. To break through our strategy, we need a complete, functional charging structure all over China.

Wedler also hones in on the major challenge for electric cars in China: charging infrastructure.

Meanwhile, however, the plug-in hybrid versions of global luxury cars are expected to sell well in China--proportionally far better than they do in North America, in fact.

That's because, unlike battery-electric vehicles, they don't necessarily have to be plugged in at all.

This article first appeared at GreenCarReports.

You've read 3 of 3 free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to New plug-in hybrid models are meant to attract a Chinese audience
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2016/0128/New-plug-in-hybrid-models-are-meant-to-attract-a-Chinese-audience
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe
CSM logo

Why is Christian Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Explore values journalism About us