Powering ahead

"The BYD electric car is a little big and clumsy," says Song Jian, executive vice-president of Tsinghua Automotive Engineering Institute. "I doubt the range claimed, because from the technical point of view, the quality of its battery is quite mediocre."

Because 2011 is only the first real year of on-road testing, the e6 and the many other EV products have yet to prove themselves. But BYD, which means Build Your Dreams, may accelerate its electric dreams further after it last year teamed up with Daimler, the maker of Mercedes Benz and the two have formed a joint venture to develop a new EV brand.

Other global auto giants have already released their new energy vehicles to the public. Mitsubishi's four-seater, bubble-shaped i-MiEV was the first mass-market electric vehicle to go on sale in Japan.

General Motors's plug-in hybrid, the Chevy Volt, was launched in the US last year and the US Environmental Protection Agency rates it as the most fuel-efficient car with a combustion engine sold in the US.

Based on a sample of the 1,210 Volts sold in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2011, GM reported that Volt customers drive on average 1,600 km before they needed to fill the gasoline tank. GM plans to release the Volt in China after October this year as well its other new models to satisfy the high demand for new cars.

The consequence of the rapid growth of new car owners is not lost on the government, which needs its EV plan to be successful, despite the wildly fluctuating projections by industry experts.

Chen Qingquan, chairman of the World Electric Vehicle Association, expects China will lead the electric-vehicle sector with an estimated 15 percent market share for hybrid and pure-electric vehicle sales by 2020.

That compares with JP Morgan Chase & Co's estimate that electric vehicles will only account for 1 or 2 percent of global vehicle sales by then.

In the end, the market will decide the fate if EVs, says Lin Yi, vice-chief engineer of Beijing Auto Industry Holdings Co (BAIC).

"We cannot assume the electric car is the future of auto industry, so we are developing hybrid, electric and fuel cell cars at the same time," he says. "When the market is clear enough, we will then switch the direction.

"The principle also applies to the commercialization of EVs. Some experts suggests battery lease, and others insist on selling complete EVs.

"There is not much point in discussing it because the right business model will be decided by the market."