SGMW-led Guangxi NEV Lab inaugurated on Aug. 3

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- SAIC-GM-Wuling ("SGMW"), General Motors' joint venture with Chinese partners SAIC Motor and Guangxi Automobile Group, on August 3 announced the inauguration of Guangxi New Energy Automobile Laboratory, whose establishment was led by the automaker and involved several other entities.

At the initial stage, the newly-unveiled lab will have four sub-labs focusing on metal materials forming, applications of controllers and chips, intelligent speech technology, as well as power batteries and relevant core materials, respectively. These facilities will work on exploring in many fields crucial to new energy vehicle ("NEV") development, such as high-quality automotive steel technology, in-house development of software and hardware, smart voice interaction, and core battery issues.

Photo credit: SGMW

With around 10.2 billion yuan ($1.512 billion) to be invested, the Guangxi NEV lab will develop five open platforms to boost the cooperation of automotive companies, electronic information firms, Internet companies, global developers, universities, and scientific research institutes, and the sharing of R&D resources like data, information, R&D equipment, testing facilities, and technology services.

Shen Yang, general manager of SGMW, said the newborn lab aims to develop itself into a country-leading innovation base and promote the development and innovation of Guangxi's NEV industry by building the GSEV (Global Small Electric Vehicle) and FDEV (Flexible Drive-mode Electric Vehicle) platforms.