“Traditional vehicles will still hold an absolute major share in China’s automotive market before 2030,” said Xu, “therefore, low carbonization is the inevitable trend for future vehicles.” In Xu’s view, there are three main ways to meet the stricter limit on fuel consumption: light-weighting, miniaturization and technological upgrade of the traditional engine, all of which need to be supported by advanced materials.
When it comes to new energy technology, the ratio of NEVs is climbing to total sales of new cars. Moreover, the government is actively pushing the development of NEVs with a series of measures. It is clearly stated in the Mid- and Long-term Development Plan for Automotive Industry that by 2020, NEV annual sales will hit 2 million and by 2025 over 20% of car sales will be powered by new energy.
The four main influencing factors for the development of NEVs are: the key technology maturity of battery and whole cars, sale price of a whole car, convenience of charging and the supply chain of NEV production. The introduction of new materials may be the breakthrough in current NEV technology. “Take the fast-growing electric vehicles segment as an example. Battery has been a pivotal difficulty for its production development. With the emergence of ternary cathode materials, the battery can achieve higher energy density than a lithium battery, and in this case, its life span increases. This is a new opportunity created by new materials,” Xu added.
