City aims to be global new-energy vehicle hub

Shanghai aims to produce 1.2 million new-energy vehicles by 2025 with output value exceeding 350 billion yuan (US$54.2 billion), accounting for more than 35 percent of the city's automobile manufacturing output value, according to a new plan released on Thursday.

With the release of Shanghai's implementation plan for accelerating the development of new-energy vehicles (2021-2025), the city has set ambitious goals to enhance industry application levels that dovetail with the country's rising momentum in the new-energy vehicle sector.

The city aims to further promote the development of new-energy vehicles amid rising consumer demand and its goal of becoming a hub of technology and innovation center with global influence.

The city hopes to make major breakthroughs in core technologies for the vehicles. Research and development and manufacturing of key components such as power batteries are expected to lead the world.

Shanghai will further optimize and enhance the production layout of electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla and the Volkswagen modular electric vehicle platform project, cultivate the value of domestic brands such as Zhiji Motor and SAIC Motor's R brand and drive the city's new-energy vehicle industry chain development.

To facilitate the use of new-energy vehicles, the city will work to convert existing public charging poles to fast-charging poles and strive to have a total of 10,000 charging poles.

By 2025, the city aims to manufacture more than 10,000 fuel-cell vehicles with 70 charging stations for such vehicles.

In 2020, 2.64 million vehicles were manufactured in the city, accounting for more than 10 percent of the country's total production. More than 238,000 new-energy vehicles were locally produced, a year-on-year increase of 190 percent. Total output value was 66.36 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 170 percent.

City officials said consumers' acceptance of new-energy vehicles is on the rise. In 2020, 120,000 more were sold than in 2019, and 20,000 have already been sold in January.

Shanghai will support the reform of state-owned enterprises and create a number of “unicorn” companies. The city will support Jiading Anting, the Lingang New Area and Jinqiao to build a world-class new-energy automobile industry cluster. In addition, it will promote the integrated development of fuel-cell and intelligent vehicles in the Yangtze River Delta region.

China's auto industry is entering a critical period of transformation and industrial upgrade, and the city released goals and key tasks in the new round of development during a press conference today.