Taiwan Plans Aggressive Electric Vehicle Production and Export Program
By John O'Dell April 19, 2010
China proper has said its wants to be the world leader in electric cars, and neighboring Taiwan doesn't plan to sit on the sidelines.
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Luxgen7 electric van prototype from Taiwan's Yulon Group uses power controls from Southern California's AC Propulsion.
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The government of Taiwan has approved a national (the consider themselves a nation, even though China considers them a runaway province) development strategy that calls for it to invest the equivalent of almost $310 million in electric vehicle production and infrastructure over the next seven years.
As part of the plan, reported by analysts at IHS Global Insight, citing China Economic News Service, the government would back production of 60,000 Taiwanese electric vehicles a year from 2013 through 2016, at which point the annual goal would begin increasing to 1.2 million vehicles a year by 2030.
Most of the EVs would be exported, and those that remained for sale in Taiwan would have prices that would be subsided by the government.
From now until 2013, the government plan calls for a series of test programs utilizing 3,000 EVs in various government fleets to help determine EV use patterns and charging needs and to begin the process of building an EV components supply chain.
Separately, Taiwanese automaker Yulon Group has said it plans to spend $157 million to build an electric vehicle plant with annual production capacity of 200,000 vehicles a year.
Yulon says on its Website that it is working with U.S.-based electronic drive systems developer AC Propulsion - supplier of the Mini E's power control unit. The Taiwanese ato company also says it will sell its EVs both in Taiwan and in mainland China.
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