Green is The New Bling in Beijing

The official theme for the Beijing Auto Expo this year is “For a Greener Tomorrow”, with a clear focus on clean & green energy vehicles.

Obviously many car manufacturers were putting their best green foot forward trying their best to to stand out in the crowd at the the 11th biannual Beijing International Automotive Exhibition, or Auto China 2010, which could be a difficult feat to attain with almost a 1000 vehicles on display this year.  This is an important auto show for manufacturers as China became the world’s largest domestic auto market passing the USA for the first time in total sales by selling 13.4 million vehicles in 2009 and sales have been up 40% year on year!

On exhibit for the estimated 700,000 attending the Beijing 2010 Auto Expo are 95 clean alternative energy cars and an assortment of the latest energy-saving technologies such as:

General Motors: Showed the Chevy Volt

China’s BYD: Launched their five seater pure electric e6

SAIC Motor Corporation: China’s largest auto maker (in terms of sales), had its E1 electric car on display.

In addition to all the new hybrid, electric and concept EVs being shown during the week-long event there was some additional EV industry news

The Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co announced it would invest 542 million US dollars in developing alternative-energy cars.  ”Obviously that’s quite another positive EV industry indicator as to how much the Chinese are looking for alternatives to fossil fuels and their sustained commitment to the development and adaptation of the electric vehicle” says the green advocate Ken Burridge of EV.com.

In other EV breaking news at the show was that China’s largest independent carmaker Chery Automobile Co signed a letter of memorandum of understanding with the US company Better Place to “jointly develop switchable-battery electric vehicle prototypes and collaborate on research on building a network of EV charging stations for electric cars”.