Detroit Electric, the start-up electric car maker is to partner with China’s Geely Automobile to develop EVs for the Chinese market.
Geely, which owns Volvo Cars, recently withdrew as a potential bidder for Fisker Automotive while earlier this month, Michigan-based Detroit Electric unveiled its own model, a US$135,000, battery-powered sports car that it says will go into limited production in August.
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The two companies will jointly develop a pure-electric version of Geely’s Emgrand EC7, a compact sedan which is slated to go on sale in the first quarter of 2014.
The partnership was announced at the Shanghai Auto Show. Chinese carmakers are trying to balance the government’s efforts to promote green cars with consumers’ apparent disinterest in electric and hybrid electric vehicles.
Beijing’s ‘new-energy’ car policy, which aims to put half a million EVs and hybrids on the road by 2015 and 5m by 2020, has failed to gain traction, despite a flurry of incentives to customers and carmakers.
Detroit Electric said it would form a joint-venture company with Geely to manufacture EV components for Geely’s electric cars near the Chinese’s firm’s Hangzhou headquarters.
Detroit Electric CEO Albert Lam said in a statement “I am confident that we can become a leader of pure electric vehicles in the Chinese market within the next 18 months.”
In March, Geely formed a US$160m electric-car joint venture with China’s Kandi Technologies to build battery-powered minicars primarily for urban commuters. It is also jointly developing electric-vehicle technology, including plug-in hybrids with its Volvo subsidiary.
Lam said Detroit Electric plans to introduce four more electric vehicles, including a hatchback and a sedan, by late 2014, “priced for everyday users”.
He added that Detroit Electric was looking to raise another US$50m to US$100m from investors to help fund the new models as it targets 10,000 electric-car sales in 2014, growing to 45,000 by 2017, with 45% of sales in the US.
