JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #113 - June 2017 - 18

BUSINESS second life
cumulate to a sum as high as
90,000 yuan (US$13,000),
while the price of an EV
in China ranges between
US$22,000-58,000.

Bo Liang, Chairman&CEO, Adesso Advanced Materials

process is tested on an electric vehicle in China, as local automakers make up most
of the electric car market and
are now seriously investing
in research & development,
leading to better cars with
more power and a longer
range, and thus to more sales.
The market for electric cars
and all sorts of other electric vehicles keeps booming
in China, overtaking both US
and European levels.
For the first ten months of
2016, the Chinese production and sales of new energy
vehicles reached 355 thousand units and 337 thousand
units respectively, increas-

ing 77.9% and 82.2% year on
year. To be specific, the production and sales of BEV
(battery electric vehicles)
reached 276 thousand units
and 258 thousand units, increasing 98.1% and 102.5%
year on year; and such figures
for PHEV (plug-in hybrid
electric vehicles) were both
79 thousand units, increasing 31% and 37.2% year on
year, according to the China
Association of Automobile
Manufacturers.
One of the main reasons for
the stellar growth of EV sales
in China is the very generous
subsidies of the central and
local governments, which can

ELG Carbon Fibre's new nonwoven line manufactures 2.7m wide recycled
carbon mats

18

jec composites magazine / No113 June 2017

To achieve global leadership
in the EV market that they
missed in the conventional car market, China's policy
makers targeted electric cars
for special support in the industrial plan "Made in China
2025", which aims to foster
upgraded,
technologically
advanced manufacturing. By
2020, Beijing expects its automakers to be able to churn
out two million electric and
hybrid vehicles annually - six
times the number produced
in 2015.
Sino-European lightweighting partnerships
Launched early 2017 in the
Chinese market, Chery's eQ1
is not the first electric vehicle
manufactured by the stateowned Chinese automaker,
which ranks among the first
ten Chinese car manufacturers and entered the EV market in the early 2010's with
both hybrid and electric
models.
"There is a strong need to reduce the weight of both new energy and conventional vehicles
in order to meet environmental and performance targets.
We believe that carbon fibre
composites have an important
role to play, and that through
our cooperation with ELG and
Adesso on the eQ1 project, we
will gain a significant learning curve advantage that we
can then use in our conventional vehicles", said Gao Lixin,
Deputy General Manager
of Chery Automobile Co.
Ltd. and General Manager
of Chery New Energy

Automobile Technology Co.
Ltd.
Frazer Barnes, Managing
Director of ELG Carbon
Fibre added, "The eQ1,
through its extensive use of aluminium, already represents
a huge step forward in lightweighting for the Chinese car
industry. We are pleased to be
working with the innovative engineering team at Adesso and
Chery to help them take the
next step forward, and start introducing carbon fibre composites into their vehicles".
Lightweighting in automotive was already the aim
of another Sino-European
partnership. Jointly with
its controlling shareholder
Kangde
Investment
Group, Kangdexin Composite
Material Group (KDX) created an industry value chain
for CFRP for the mainstream
market of new energy automotive, the result of a joint
effort between Chinese and
German industries. In March
2015, the KDX Europe
Composites R&D Centre
was established by KDX,
supported by the Institute
for Carbon Composites of
the Technical University of
Munich. The centre focuses
on the European and Chinese
markets to provide high-quality carbon fibre research and
development services. In
May 2015, KDX and Forward
Engineering GmbH (formerly Roding Technology)
jointly established the KDXRoding Europe Automobile
Design Centre in Munich,
which mainly provides onestop lightweight design solutions for Chinese OEMs.
More information:
www.elgcf.com/
www.adessomaterials.com/
http://www.elgcf.com/ http://www.adessomaterials.com/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #113 - June 2017
