New motor giant emerges

BY ANDREW HEASLEY - SMH

Chinese car companies are gearing up to take on the West, writes Andrew Heasley from the Shanghai Motor Show.

I'm yelling down the Nokia, not in a fit of silicon rage but because on a stand just a few metres away, popular Chinese brand Chery has launched into a palpable, wall-of-sound, doof-doof audio tsunami with frenetic dancing and rainbow zebras to announce a new city car.

It's like standing behind a jumbo jet at full roar.

What the Chinese companies might lack in subtlety they more than make up for in genuine enthusiasm. And it's this enthusiasm to be the newest, brightest and the best that should have the struggling outposts of major companies, indeed the major companies themselves, a bit worried.

Sure, it's easy to treat oddball home-grown Chinese cars as a complete joke. They're surely deathtraps, doubters say, if they work long enough to get you to a speed where you could hurt yourself. They've got funny names - Dongfeng, Laibo, Lifan, Roewe.

Some city cars look like cross-eyed toys while the big cars can look like monsters from the deep.

But to dismiss them offhandedly is to ignore the Chinese industry's drive to succeed. While European companies took a century to fettle decent cars, the Japanese took half the time. The Koreans a couple of decades. The Chinese? After snooping around this show I'd venture it'll only take a few years. The Dragon is fired up and it's about to start breathing down Western industrial necks.

Where Chinese brands deserve to rise above disparaging remarks is in the area of genuine innovation.

While the busy halls of Shanghai's exhibition centre contain plenty of examples of me-tooism, numerous cars show not only streaks of originality but, in some cases, true innovation.

The most vigorous thrust from the industry comes from companies exploring forms of propulsion other than traditional internal combustion.

Where combustion engines feature, they're allied with battery systems as hybrids or feature stop-start technology to save fuel and cut pollution.

Indeed Roewe, which bought Rover and MG from the ashes of the British marques' demise, revealed a production-ready hybrid, the Roewe 750, which will be built from the end of next year  - a first for a Chinese brand.

You can't imagine that happening in the same timeframe had the marque still been owned and run in Britain.

BOLD VISION

Beyond hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell cars (with a twist) indicate the boldness of Chinese vision.

But perhaps the most widespread alternative cars to be found among the 100,000 square metres of exhibition space are plug-in electrics.

You get a sense the Chinese see electric cars as the "laptop" of future mobility.

Yes, the first-generation notebooks were clunky, ran out of battery power pretty quickly and recharging them took forever just like today's electric cars. But look how far laptops have come in terms of reliability, performance and appeal.

As new-generation batteries became smaller, more powerful and faster to recharge, the devices they powered became smarter, sleeker, faster, genuinely useful and ultimately desirable.

And where do the vast majority of laptops come from these days? China the country that boasts the second-largest battery company in the world, BYD, which also happens to be a prominent car maker. A picture begins to form of how China intends to drive automotive innovation.

As the Chery din dies down and the decibel roadshow moves on to another stand, I wait in line to see their technology leaders. One, the Chery A3 Hybrid ISG, is a full hybrid system like Toyota's Prius.

The spokesman says its 1.3-litre motor has regenerative braking to top up the battery, while stop-start technology saves about 30 percent of the fuel consumed by its conventional equivalent.

The other, the A5 BSG city car, is more conventional with a normal petrol engine fitted with stop-start technology.

But the next car along, the Riich M1 (yes, two "i"s, a sub-brand of Chery with one "r"), has what looks like a couple of laptop computers installed below a cosmetic engine cowling under the bonnet. From its hindquarters, an extension cord trails away to a powerpoint.

The Riich M1, in theory, can drive 120 kilometres on a single charge of its lithium-ion battery, which takes six hours to charge from a domestic powerpoint, though it can be topped up to 80 peRcent capacity in 30 minutes at a rapid-charge station (not that you'll find one outside a laboratory, for now).

GENERAL MOTORS 

An hour or so later at a General Motors press conference, questions hone in on the fallout from GM's shattered empire, as it teeters on the edge of bankruptcy.

A Wall Street Journal reporter essentially asks the head of GM's Asia Pacific region and its China operations head how GM will "handicap" Chinese firms that seek to forge ahead with electric and alternative propulsion systems.

"I think we ought to be very serious about considering Chinese companies as potential competitors in battery-electric vehicles," says GM's Asia Pacific boss, Nick Reilly.

"From what we've seen so far, the technology is not that advanced in terms of things like battery life, in terms of range and in terms of recharging.

"However ... we know the Chinese government, as well as these Chinese companies, are investing a lot of money in battery technology, so I think it would be foolish for us to ignore them and believe that we are that far ahead."

I ask a Chinese motoring journalist how he sees China's domestic car makers. He admits the widespread replication of Western cars is not a good look but says it is done with the intention of getting up to speed with the engineering - a learning exercise as much as anything else.

CHINESE DRAGON

But from what's on display at the show, the Chinese Dragon roars the fiercest when it's let off the leash.

Geely's concept IG city car is as paradigm-shifting as Toyota's iQ micro car at last year's Paris motor show. A strikingly styled pod-shaped body with arching gullwing doors, it is a 1+3-seater electric car packing more innovation per square centimetre than almost any car I've seen.

To start with, the body shell is built like a domestic fridge - it's insulated to help keep extremes of heat or cold at bay. Special lightweight plastic windows filter out UV, giving the air-conditioning a chance to be less of a drain on the electrics. Solar cells on the bonnet and dashboard help top up electrical supplies and run ventilation.

The central driver's seat slides sideways to allow easy access to the rear, which includes a special child seat in an otherwise wasted spot between the rear seats behind the driver - the safest spot in a car.

Crucially, customers would order the size of electric motor that fits their needs.

And if you're not an electric car fan, or it's not practical, you can opt for a small petrol engine instead. Geely says the car (minus the electrical drivetrain or engine) would cost about $2000.

Is anyone at Smart feeling a little nervous, let alone GM, which is hoping its small Cruze global car will spearhead its case to convince the US government the company is worth saving? If not, they should be.

And if anyone dismisses Geely's intention to mix it with the big boys, take note: they're acquiring foreign parts suppliers. The latest acquisition? Australia's Drivetrain Systems International (DSI) transmission plant, which supplies transmissions worldwide, including for local cars. When the acquisition process is complete, your Aussie-built Ford Falcon will in effect have a Geely DSI gearbox.

And the company has big visions for DSI as a technology springboard, both to promulgate DSI's existing know-how among its present car portfolio and to invest in future developments.

HYDROGEN FUEL

Looking further down the track, the wonder-fuel of hydrogen has proved difficult for companies all around the world to commercialise.

While its by-product, through combustion or reverse-electrolysis, is harmless water vapour, it's difficult to make hydrogen, distribute it and store it onboard. It doesn't liquefy until hundreds of degrees below zero.

But a prototype hydrogen car at the show sidesteps the problem by turning ordinary ethanol fuel in its tank, which can be made from crops or even recycled rubbish, to hydrogen as it drives. That hydrogen is fed to an onboard fuel cell, which turns it into electricity, which drives an electric motor.

It's called the "GCEP", from Guangzhou Automobile Group in collaboration with the South China University of Technology.

That car might still be years from commercialisation but for Australians, Chinese car imports are just around the corner.

Ateco Automotive, the company that imports Alfa Romeos, Fiats, Citroens, Maseratis and Ferraris to Australia, will soon be importing conventional cars from Chinese brands Great Wall and Chery. The first of these models is scheduled to arrive here in a matter of months.

The managing director at Ateco, Ric Hull, has been in discussions with various Chinese companies in the past four years. What's impressed him, he says, is the Chinese dedication to improvement.

"The scale of operations here has no equal, other than perhaps Japan," Mr Hull says. "I am interested in electric cars. Hybrids are really a step along the way ... the ultimate solution ... will be pure electric. They seem to be getting so close to it."

It's a sentiment that is shared by GM's Nick Reilly.

"China may well become the country that leads the switch to electric vehicles," he says.