General Motors Corp will sell its first gas-electric hybrid cars in China in July, introducing a model created in part by GM’s Shanghai design center, the company said yesterday.
The Buick LaCrosse will be the second hybrid to enter the Chinese automobile market following Toyota Motor Corp’s Prius in early 2006.
The LaCrosse was expected to be unveiled today at the Beijing auto show, GM managers said. They said it would be priced under 300,000 yuan (US$43,000) — comparable to the Prius.
“We don’t expect to see a very high volume of sales of this car in China in a short period of time. But we bring this technology to help China support sustainable growth and bring consumers in that direction,” Joseph Liu (劉曰海), GM China’s vice president for sales, told reporters.
The car was developed with contributions from GM’s Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center in Shanghai, said Maryann Combs, president of the center.
Hybrids improve fuel efficiency and cut emissions by generating extra power from the brakes as a vehicle tops. But they also cost more because they require both gasoline and electric motors.
GM said the LaCrosse would be the first hybrid made in China. The Prius is assembled from imported parts.
Toyota has sold about 2,500 Priuses in China since 2006 but sales are slowing in part because Chinese drivers are unfamiliar with hybrids, reports in the industry press said.
GM has made China, the world’s second-biggest and fastest-growing vehicle market, a key part of its efforts to develop alternative power sources. It announced plans in October for a US$250 million fuel research center in Shanghai.
Chairman Rick Wagoner took part yesterday in the opening of an automotive energy research center partly financed by GM at Tsinghua University in Beijing, the alma mater of Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
GM says it sold just over 1 million vehicles in China last year.
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