Wanxiang Group, a major Chinese auto parts supplier which almost three years ago bought the assets of defunct California-based plug-in hybrid carmaker Fisker Automotive, has received approval from local regulators to produce electric vehicles in China.<\/p>\n
\nAccording to a notice on Friday on the website of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China\u2019s top economic and industrial planner, Wanxiang has the green light to build a factory with capacity to produce 50,000 electric cars a year.<\/p>\n
The move means the former Fisker Automotive, which was founded in part with a U.S. government loan and ceased production of its $100,000 plug-in electric hybrid sports cars in 2012 after a series of technical glitches and cost overruns, continues to survive under Chinese ownership after Wanxiang gave it a second life.<\/p>\n
Wanxiang later changed Fisker\u2019s name to Karma Automotive.<\/p>\n
Wanxiang, a Hangzhou-based company which in 2012 also acquired U.S. lithium-ion battery maker A123, became the sixth company to be allowed to produce new-energy vehicles in China.<\/p>\n
More companies are currently being encouraged to enter the automotive industry in China but only if they are willing to produce so-called new-energy cars, mostly all-electric battery cars and heavily electrified plug-in hybrids.<\/p>\n
China has been making a push for electrically-propelled cars by offering incentives to buyers, forcing global automakers to share their technology, and opening its market to tech firms and others to produce electric vehicles.<\/p>\n
Beijing wants such vehicles to serve the mass market, and hopes the technology will help its auto industry close a competitive gap with global rivals which have a century\u2019s head-start in traditional combustion engines.<\/p>\n
Aside from Wanxiang, NDRC has approved five companies to produce new-energy vehicles, including Ch-Auto\u2019s Qiantu Motor, and Changjiang Auto. More companies such as WM Motor, Future Mobility, Singulato Motors are seeking approval.\u2014Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n Image: Alamy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wanxiang Group, a major Chinese auto parts supplier which almost three years ago bought the assets of defunct California-based plug-in hybrid carmaker Fisker Automotive, has received approval from local regulators to produce electric vehicles in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}