Alternative vehicles showcased in China

One experimental clean-energy car runs on natural gas. Another uses ethanol distilled from corn.

A third has a zero-emissions electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. These alternative vehicles were created not by a global automaker but by China’s small but ambitious car companies, which displayed them Sunday alongside gasoline-powered sedans and sport utility vehicles at the start of the Shanghai Auto Show.

At a time when they are still trying to establish themselves in international markets, Chinese automakers are already investing in such avant-garde research in a bid to win a foothold in the next generation of technology. “This is the tide of the industry. If you don’t go with the tide, the industry will pass you by,” said Qin Lihong, a vice president of China’s biggest domestic automaker, Chery Auto Co., in an interview ahead of the show’s opening. China’s communist leaders are encouraging the development as part of efforts to cut pollution and rising dependence on imported oil and to make this country a creator of profitable technologies. Chinese manufacturers are getting help from foreign automakers in joint ventures and from research alliances with Chinese universities and government laboratories. Beijing has made cleaner cars a policy priority, targeting the field as one of 11 priority areas in a 15-year technology development plan issued in February 2006. It promised grants and tax breaks to support industry efforts.

The campaign embodies one of Beijing’s strategies in technology development: Pick new areas with no entrenched competitors so China can make breakthroughs without huge costs. While foreign automakers have a lead in conventional technology, “in new energy we’re starting from almost the same line,” said Chen Hong, the president of Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp. “So we believe we can catch up with other auto companies and make great progress in developing new energy vehicles,” Chen said.

Source : http://www.todayszaman.com

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FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) — Germany and France are still far from resolving their differences regarding the EU’s proposed rules on reducing car emissions, Handelsblatt said, citing government sources.

A meeting last Wednesday between German and French officials to find a compromise on car emission targets proposed by the European Commission showed the positions of the two countries are poles apart, the paper said.

As a result a scheduled meeting between German Environment

Minister Sigmar Gabriel and his French counterpart Jean-Louis Borloo had to be cancelled, it said, without saying when the meeting was to take place.

Germany has criticized the Commission’s proposals to impose heavy fines on carmakers that fail to meet emissions targets by 2012, arguing the measures unfairly burden the country’s car producers.

The proposed penalties would start in 2012 at 20 euros per gram of carbon dioxide over a target and increase to 95 euros in 2015.

Companies such as Daimler, BMW, Porsche and Audi — which make big cars that consume a huge amount of gasoline — have lobbied hard against the EU plans.

Makers of smaller cars, such as those in France, Italy, Spain and Romania, support the EU.

Handelsblatt said with the meeting of Gabriel and Borloo now cancelled, the goal to present a German-French compromise by early

June during a meeting of the EU environment ministers is unlikely to be met.

The plan was that a final agreement would then be signed during an EU summit meeting in mid-June, the report said.

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BUCHAREST (Reuters) — Workers ended a 19-day pay strike at Renault’s Dacia plant in Romania today after management decided to raise employees’ wages by around 23 percent, on average, in 2008, the company said today.

“We signed the agreement … work at the plant resumed at 11:00 CET. We hope to reach normal output levels on Monday,” Liviu Ion, Dacia communication manager, told Reuters by telephone.

Ion said management will raise monthly wages by around 435 lei ($191) before tax this year. Dacia workers, who produce the low-cost Logan model, on average earn 1,900 lei a month.

Renault declined to give a figure for the cost of the strike but denied a Reuters report on Thursday that it was 50 million euros ($79 million).

“The figure is below that,” a company spokeswoman said, adding the strike lasted 14 working days because the plant is usually closed at the weekend. Renault had included wage rises at Dacia in its financial planning, she added.

At the Mioveni plant in south Romania, Renault produces around 1,300 cars a day.

About 6,000 workers attended a protest rally in the city of Pitesti on Thursday, part of the action called by their union last month, after demands for a 65 percent wage rise were branded unrealistic by the plant’s management.

Western carmakers, including U.S. giant Ford, have been attracted to the new European Union member by its cheap labor and low taxes. However, mounting wage pressure is seen as a risk to the emerging country’s economic stability.

Average net wages in Romania jumped 30.7 percent year on year to 1,200 lei in nominal terms in January, boosted mainly by bonuses in the health and education sectors.

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