BYD urges more government support for PHEV

(Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD Auto)

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- At the 2018 China EV100 Forum, Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD Auto, stated that plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) will continue to be the mainstream in global private vehicle market and thus the government policy should encourage the promotion of PHEVs.

The PHEV system has taken up nearly half of the global new energy vehicle (NEV) market shares, according to Wang. In his speech, Wang took the NEV sales of Europe and the United States as examples. The NEV sales in Europe reached 259,000 units last year while PHEV accounted for 49 percent. In the United States, the sales of the segment totaled 195,200 units in 2017 while PHEV took up 47 percent.

In China NEV market, PHEV sales took up 47 percent of the total NEV deliveries to private owners, excluding the deliveries of A00-class vehicle, whose proportion was so small in Europe or American NEV sales. The percentage of the PHEVs would be even up to 67 percent without counting the NEV vehicles used as taxi or for ride-sharing. Thus the founder and his company expect the PHEV as the mainstream in the private vehicle market.

Out of the above consideration, Wang called on the government to give much more policy support for the development of PHEV. According to Wang, there shouldn’t be any traffic control or purchasing restriction on PHEV and the consumption tax on PHEV should also be exempted.

(Yang Yusheng, member of Chinese Academy of Engineering)

However, another speaker at the same forum delivered totally different viewpoints. Yang Yusheng, member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that PHEV is not a real kind of electric vehicle. He also shared an anecdote at the forum. Certain PHEV buyers in Shanghai span off the vehicle's battery for light weight and fuel efficiency. They used PHEVs as traditional fuel-fossil powered vehicles but with subsidies and free license plates.

From the academician’s perspective, the right approach to cultivate NEV market is to develop safe and fuel-efficient electric vehicles with lower emissions, which should be yard stick for NEV. The focus of the industry should be put on battery electric subcompact vehicles and the range-extended battery electric mid-large vehicles, according to Yang.