Lifan to plug into green car rental business

Chongqing Lifan Group has rolled out an ambitious plan to build the world's biggest car-sharing rental company next year.

The company hopes to have 300,000 electric cars in its rental business by 2020, which will help make it one of the leading new-energy vehicle leasing platforms in China, according to Gao Yu, CEO of Lifan-owned Pand Auto.

Pand Auto, a car-hailing platform for new-energy vehicles, launched its car-sharing service in November in Chongqing.

This year, the service has expanded to Zhengzhou, Henan province, and Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

"Pand Auto is committed to promoting green traveling, combining internet tools for automobiles with car-hailing services," Gao said.

The company uses Lifan 300EV2 electric cars whose eight batteries, as claimed by the manufacturer, can be changed in just three minutes. The battery charging service can be provided by energy supply vans or at battery stations.

Carbon emissions could be reduced by 2 million tons every year if Pand's 300,000 cars are put into operation, she added.

Chen Wei, vice-president of Lifan, is an advocate of the battery-changing model for electric cars. "We charge the batteries during the night, which can cut energy costs in half."

"It is a very good use of 'waste energy' and we have a very clear business model," Chen said.

In China, the night time power price is only half of that of peak hours during the day.

Lifan built its first battery station in June, which can serve 2,000 cars daily. It plans to build 13 stations in the country this year.

But Pand Auto is facing increasing competition from home and abroad.

Car2go, Germany’s Daimler AG’s car-sharing rental service, is No 1 in the industry with about 125,000 Mercedes-Benz Smart cars. It launched its operations in Chongqing in April, its first Car2go rental service in Asia.

But Pand Auto has its advantages. Its users pay 19 yuan ($2.5) per hour or 99 yuan a day, while Car2go customers pay 1.19 yuan per kilometer, plus 0.59 yuan per minute.

Another local company, Changan Automobile Co, which is set to invest 18 billion yuan in the next 10 years into high-quality electric cars, is also planning to put 2,000 electric cars into rental service in the city this year.

Chongqing is one of the biggest car manufacturing cities in China. Vehicle manufacturers in the city aim to tap into the electric-car industry and inject new impetus in the automobile industry.

In 2015, about 3 million vehicles rolled off the assembly lines in the city, 70 percent of which came from the Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, the third national-level pilot zone after the Pudong New Area in Shanghai and the Binhai New Area in Tianjin.

Most major Chinese carmakers, including Changan and Lifan, are located in the area.

The Liangjiang New Area has launched a new strategy to build a new-energy vehicle industry cluster.