China holds the key to cars of the future

The announcement on Christmas Eve 2009 that the final hurdles for the buy out of the Volvo brand by the Chinese Geely Motor Car Company came as no surprise to the workers on the assembly lines of plants in Gothenburg, Sweden and Gent, Belgium.

What is the reason for a Chinese company to buy a Swedish brand from an American-owned mother company? Some would say the Chinese do it to spite the US and finally prove that they are the new manufacturing super power. However, I think there might be a more strategic long term view.
The most likely scenario is that China has adopted a long term plan to build electrical engines to power Chinese made cars of the future. As a first step in building a full-scale electrical engine that can propel a four-wheeled vehicle weighing up to 1000 kilograms, Chinese engineers are busying themselves developing smaller electrical rare-Earth-magnet containing engines that are powering that most ubiquitous vehicle on Chinese roads — the bicycle.

There are a number of companies in Australia that are importing Chinese-made electrical hub engines powered by compact lithium ion polymer battery packs as found in mobile phones. These importers can testify to the performance and steadily increasing quality of Chinese-manufactured electrical engines and batteries.

In the future, I believe we will be driving an ice blue European-looking car powered by a red-hot Chinese-manufactured electrical engine on our roads.

Sydney Morning Herald