http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=am5CV7UjemZo&refer=news

Basic sum up

The S18 can travel as much as 150 kilometers (93 miles) using just its batteries. The S18 can be fully charged in as little as four hours and be 80 percent powered via a quick charge at a specialist station in 30 minutes, Chery said.

It sounds like the Chinese government sees the writing on the wall for the end of the cheap oil age and is encouraging the leapfrogging of oil dependent vehicles before they get as complacent about cheap oil dependency as the rest of the world.

Basically this is another concept car. When Chrysler puts a bunch of batteries into one of it's existing cars it's vaporware. Chery puts a bunch of batteries into one of it's existing cars and it's a fact and people start on about the failure of Detroit. Neither Chrysler or Chery have put a date on when they will be selling their concepts to consumers. I hope people will treat the S18 the same way they do all the other EV and E-REV concepts and not start thumping everyone over the head with all the great new EVs that you can buy now over in China.

That Bloomberg piece calls the S18 a hybrid but it's a battery only car.

The Chery is coming off the production assembly line today. It's not vaporware.

The Chrysler is a pathetic attempt to extort bailout money from the Feds. It is vaporware. Does Chrysler even have any engineers left?

BYD's vehicle is already on sale. It's not vaporware.

GM, this week, will issue more press releases about the Volt. It is vaporware.

China 2 - US 0. The US had better come out of the locker room fully charged to play a much better second half.

Chery S18 is an illegal piracy of Daewoo Matiz(aka Chevrolet Spark).

GM lawyers would seize Cherys at the port, so no Chery for you. Heck, the first thing Chrysler did when they first signed Hornet deal with Chery was to go to GM and try to get a Matiz license...

HyperMiler writes, "Chery S18 is an illegal piracy of Daewoo Matiz(aka Chevrolet Spark)."

OK... Not that I necessarily believe that but if Chery can electrify one of GM's vehicles and put it into production today... what's GM waiting for?

HyperMiler writes, "Chery S18 is an illegal piracy of Daewoo Matiz(aka Chevrolet Spark)."

OK... Not that I necessarily believe that but if Chery can electrify one of GM's vehicles and put it into production today... what's GM waiting for?

Do you think that GM can instantly reconfigure it's assembly lines to make that vehicle RIGHT NOW? Only magic could do that. If GM said "hmm, let's make THOSE" today, it would be MONTHS before they could have them rolling off the line.

That doesn't even consider the complications of sourcing a battery unit and other components that GM doesn't traditionally have sources for.

So even if GM said today "hmm, let's make THOSE", it would probably be a couple years until they roll off the line.

The fact that something is feasible, and that someone else is already making it doesn't mean that anyone else can simply 'make the same thing right now'.

Let's see here...

GM built the car first.

Number 1 rolls off the production line and Chery buys it and ship it back to the Chery factory.

Then, Chery had to figure out how to copy it and make their assembly line. Presumably, that took a couple of years, then a couple more to electrify it.

What was GM doing all that time while Chery was copying and adapting their own car?

The Chery is coming off the production assembly line today. It's not vaporware.

Really? Prove it. This is from the article linked above:


Chery has no timetable as yet on when the S18 will go on sale, spokesman Jin Yibo said in an interview by phone today.

I read three articles about this car and all of them said that Chery has made no annoucements yet on future production. I think you are mistaken by that publicity photo that was taken showing the S18 rolling off the "line". It was staged. From all accounts that I have read, there is no production yet. They are doing exactly what everybody else is doing, jumping on the EV band wagon by taking an existing car, piling a bunch of batteries into it, showing it off to people and then going back to the lab and trying to figure out how to make it work for mass production someday.

OK... Not that I necessarily believe that but if Chery can electrify one of GM's vehicles and put it into production today... what's GM waiting for?
GM and Chinese companies like BYD and Chery have different standard and definition for a product "launch". In GM's term, a product launch is a real launch as you and I understand it, after exhausting amount of testing and fully warranted. In Chinese term, a product launch can mean anything; basically paying(not paid) alpha-testing consisting of a few dozen hand-built prototypes to verify a much lower standard, like a life span of 70,000~80,000 miles over 6 years. The reason for this is because life's cheap in China and product reliability lawsuit is non-existent. In other word, it's buyer's fault for being stupid enough to buy a garbage product, not seller's fault for cleverly deceiving a buyer to buy defective and untested product.

You really have to understand Chinese mentality before seeing why Chinese cars are unlikely to ever become a significant force in the US and Europe, and that's fine with Chinese. Unlike Japanese and Koreans whose domestic markets were not large enough to support their auto industry, Chinese domestic auto market is the biggest in the world right now, so why venture into rough overseas.