Electric car market growing in China, creating business for US companies

Global Business

Electric car market growing in China, creating business for US companies

Electric vehicles are a big part of the future, and China is fast becoming the face of that future, becoming the world’s largest market for electric vehicles.

So companies that make key components for those vehicles are trying to take advantage of a huge opportunity.

CCTV’s Hendrik Sybrandy reports.

At UQM Technologies in Longmont, Colorado, workers assemble motors, inverters and controllers, the electric propulsion system components that make electric vehicles move. The production floor is organized, efficient and very quiet.

A typical day in China sees roadways choked with traffic, conditions fueling a push to reduce air pollution and go electric.

Joe Mitchell is the head of UQM, which has been involved with electric vehicles for nearly half a century and now has China squarely in its sights.

With battery costs down dramatically in recent years, the operating costs of electric buses have come down as well. Chinese government incentives have encouraged electrification. Mitchell said UQM’s drives for commercial vehicles make both economic and environmental sense.

Interestingly, electric buses from China are already running here in the U.S. The Chinese company BYD built these shuttles that run along Denver’s pedestrian mall.

The electric vehicle market is a two-way street.

UQM has sold prototypes of its drives in China, now has a major customer there and is negotiating with possible partners. A Chinese factory is in the works.

The world has changed for UQM.