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China Automobile Industry, Technology (NEV, Driverless, etc): News & Images

All aboard! Chinese e buses help modernize Chilean capital
New China TV
Published on Apr 3, 2019

Chinese electric buses are helping to modernize Santiago's revamped transportation system with cutting-edge technology and contemporary designs
 
China develops low-cost driverless ferry vehicle
Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-08 19:33:43|Editor: zh

HEFEI, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists have made progress in helping cut down the cost of driverless vehicles used in special areas like airports or scenic parks.

According to a research team at the Hefei Institute of Physical Science affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, cost-efficiency could be obtained by optimizing an environment-sensing algorithm and laser radars.

The technology can help reduce the price of a ferry vehicle to below 100,000 yuan (about 15,000 U.S. dollars) per unit.

Jiang Ruhai, who led the project, explained that the price of a driverless vehicle can go as high as one million yuan due to its expensive components, especially the sensors for the self-driving system.

The unmanned vehicle is able to automatically make safety decisions to stop or steer in case of emergency. Field tests prove it has good performance in sensing obstacles within 120 meters, steering clear of obstacles, remote control and parking.

The institute has signed a cooperation agreement with a local automobile manufacturer for the mass production of vehicles with the technology, which can be expected later this year.

Jiang said that currently the technology can only be applied on unmanned ferry vehicles used in factories and parks, schools and airports, as it only has a speed of 10 km per hour.

The developer has also made an app for passengers to call for the ferry vehicles.
 
Researchers develop new simulation system for automatic driving

2019-04-10 17:12:15 Xinhua Editor : Gu Liping

Chinese researchers have developed an autopilot simulation system to improve driving safety.

The system, featuring outdoor scenes and road conditions, is accurate and close to reality. It is expected to be used in autopilot route planning.

The widely-used approach for autopilot simulation is helped by computer graphic models to create driving scenarios. However, this approach remains costly, time consuming, and lacks the richness and authenticity of real-world images.

The research team from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics simulated real roads and traffic conditions based on video and photos in order to narrow the gap between the autopilot system and real environment.

By scanning street scenes, the researchers generate traffic flows for cars and pedestrians and transpose them onto the background.

The augmented approach combines vehicle movements with the real world to create effective simulation. Enditem

http://www.ecns.cn/news/2019-04-10/detail-ifzhhxra9208660.shtml
 
600 Ankai Buses to Go to Saudi Arabia
YICAI GLOBAL
DATE : APR 12 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

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600 Ankai Buses to Go to Saudi Arabia

(Yicai Global) April 12 -- Anhui Ankai Automobile celebrates the export of 600 buses to Saudi Arabia at its factory in Baohe Economic Development Zone of Hefei, capital of China's eastern Anhui province. This is the largest order for China's bus exports this year.

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Hefei-based commercial car maker Ankai begun to position itself in the Saudi market in 2007, joining hands with Saudi Arabia's largest transport firm Hafil Transportation in 2011 and exporting 3,000 school buses to the desert country in the biggest order for China's bus exports that year.

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Ankai exported 600 and 800 high-end A9 buses to Saudi Arabia in 2017 and 2018.
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Ankai has exported a total of nearly 7,000 buses to the oil-rich kingdom to become the brand with the most buses in the country. Its products range spans school buses, buses and high-end passenger vehicles for tourism and pilgrimage purposes.

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Dongfeng Honda's 3rd factory goes into operation

Xinhua, April 13, 2019

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Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co. Ltd., a joint venture between China's Dongfeng Motor Corp. and Japan's Honda Motor Co., announced Friday its third factory had gone into operation in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. [Xinhua]

Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co. Ltd., a joint venture between China's Dongfeng Motor Corp. and Japan's Honda Motor Co., announced Friday its third factory had gone into operation in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

The new factory will initially be capable of producing 120,000 cars a year and its annual capacity will reach 240,000 in the future when needed, said Natsume Tatsuya, general manager of Dongfeng Honda.

Moreover, the cutting-edge factory is designed to accommodate production of electric cars to meet rising demand in the world's largest new-energy vehicle market, where domestic and global automakers are vying to woo buyers with new-energy cars.

Dongfeng Honda sold 720,000 vehicles in 2018, a 0.8-percent rise from a year earlier, compared with a 4.1-percent slump in the Chinese car market in the same period. The sales figure of the venture far overshot its annual capacity limits of 512,000 units at the two factories in Wuhan, which have been in production since 2004 and 2012.

Sales of Dongfeng Honda witnessed a year-on-year surge of 19.8 percent in the first quarter of 2019, thanks to a continuing popularity of the CR-V sports utility vehicle and the Civic sedan, according to the company.

Zheng Chunkai, executive vice manager of Dongfeng Honda, said though the overall market slowed in China, the decision to build this new factory was based on Chinese consumers' trust in Honda cars and the factory would hopefully help his company achieve its sales target of 1 million cars a year.
 
Chinese carmaker begins mass production of driverless logistics vehicles
Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-25 23:06:18|Editor: yan

NANJING, May 25 (Xinhua) -- Neolix, a Chinese firm specialized in making driverless logistics vehicles, has started to mass produce Level 4 autonomous vehicles, the company said.

Neolix's factory in Changzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, was put into operation on Friday, company CEO Yu Enyuan said.

Covering 13,600 square meters, the factory is able to finish the commercial delivery of 1,000 driverless vehicles this year, Yu said.

So far, the company has manufactured 120 driverless vehicles, with a total mileage of 500,000 km, he said.

Neolix started to develop L4 autonomous vehicles in 2015. Yu said in the next three to five years, the vehicles will probably still be used in simple and low-speed scenarios such as campuses, industrial parks, and residential communities.

The company aims to attract more upstream and downstream companies in making intelligently connected vehicles to the mass production base.
 
Sinoma Unit to Spend USD224 Million Expanding Lithium Battery Separators Plant
TANG SHIHUA
DATE : MAY 31 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

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Sinoma Unit to Spend USD224 Million Expanding Lithium Battery Separators Plant

(Yicai Global) May 31 -- A subsidiary of Sinoma Science and Technology plans to invest about CNY1.5 billion (USD224 million) in the second phase of a plant that makes lithium battery separators amid increasing demand for such batteries, which are used in electric cars.

The next stage will bring the factory's annual production capacity to 408 million square meters, Beijing-based Sinoma Science said in a statement late yesterday. Construction work is expected to begin in July and operations will start within 23 months.

Sinoma Lithium Battery Separator's plant in Tengzhou, in China's eastern Shandong province, currently has the capacity to turn out 240 million square meters of the component a year. According to the firm's plans, it will have total annual output capacity of one billion square meters in the future.

The added capacity will enable the subsidiary to partner big battery companies at home and abroad, helping it achieve brand awareness and become an important mainstream supplier in the market for middle- and high-end separator products, the statement added.
 
10 min charging for 300 km: New LIB technology ready for production
Source: Xinhua| 2019-06-14 20:18:30|Editor: Xiang Bo

HANGZHOU, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have developed a high-energy lithium-ion battery (LIB) technology, which could enable a running distance of 300 km per 10 minutes of charging.

The debut of a passenger car loaded with the 50-kWh battery pack was held in Hangzhou, eastern China's Zhejiang Province, on Tuesday.

"The key to this fast-charging technology is the R&D of fast lithium-ion conducting materials," said Zhou Xiaoping, professor of chemical engineering of Hunan University and chief scientist at Zhejiang Folta Technology Co. Ltd.

The materials mainly consist of low-impedance ionic compounds that could not only raise power cell efficiency but bring down safety risks caused by lithium precipitation during charging and discharging, Zhou added.

A third-party evaluation report issued by the independent testing company TUV SUD showed that the cycle life of the power cells using the new technology has hit 5,000 times in a 150-ampere charge-discharge performance test and is expected to exceed 6,000 times since the cycle testing continues.

Folta has also finished joint tests on the new LIB products with a Chinese automobile manufacturer and is ready for industrial production, the company said.

Industry insiders believe that the breakthrough in fast charging technology will help popularize pure electric vehicles by providing a shorter charging time, a smaller battery load in limited spaces and more safety.

"Folta has made further improvements and innovations on the existing technology," said Xu Dingming, deputy chief of the expert consultation committee of China's National Energy Commission. "Industrial production is the next step, which will give China's NEV and energy storage industry a hopeful nudge forward."

Xu noted that more tests still need to be done before this new technology could bring about a "fast-charging revolution" for the industry and thus speed up industrial transformation for green development.
 
Baidu Apollo Launches Camera Based Solution for Level 4 Autonomous Driving
GABRIEL LI
JUNE 20, 2019


On June 19, Baidu launched Apollo Lite, a vision-based autonomous driving solution that leverages multiple cameras to achieve Level 4 (L4) autonomous driving. The new solution accelerates the development of fully autonomous vehicles that will enhance the mobility experience and create opportunities for businesses across markets.

Apollo Lite, Baidu’s latest autonomous driving solution and China’s only vision-based L4 AV solution, has the capacity to process vast amounts of data generated by its 10 cameras to enable the stable detection of objects up to 700 feet away from the vehicle. The system provides real-time, 360-degree sensing of the environment around the vehicle for safety.

“A robust vision-based system is critical to the safety of autonomous driving, especially in high-speed situations where real-time sensing is critical,” said Liang Wang, head of Apollo’s technical committee. “Apollo Lite further strengthens Baidu’s sensor fusion based autonomous driving system that leverages camera, Lidar and radar to achieve the ‘true redundancy’ necessary for a safe and fully autonomous driving experience.”

Most recently, Baidu’s autonomous vehicles relying on Apollo Lite successfully completed L4 autonomous driving on parts of Beijing’s open roads without using spinning Lidars. This is the result of many iterations driven by real world testing on open roads and means that Baidu’s vehicles are capable of operating autonomously within specific geographic areas and under certain weather conditions.

Baidu began autonomous driving research and development in early 2013 and open-sourced the Apollo software platform in 2017 to enable developers and partners to quickly build their own autonomous driving systems. Since then, Baidu also introduced Apollo Enterprise, a commercial initiative that supports a suite of customizable intelligent driving products and solutions for mass production vehicles.

Both the Apollo open platform and the Apollo Enterprise have grown at a rapid pace, with Apollo’s latest version, Apollo 3.5, gathering over 390,000 lines of code and over 12,000 Github contributors. DuerOS for Apollo, a comprehensive Internet of Vehicles (IoV) solution platform for mass production under Apollo Enterprise, has partnered with over 60 of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers across more than 300 car models to date.

Featured photo credit to cnet.com


Baidu Apollo Launches Camera Based Solution for Level 4 Autonomous Driving - Pandaily
 
China continues tax exemptions on new energy vehicles purchases
Source: Xinhua| 2019-07-01 16:30:40|Editor: ZX

BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities have announced that the tax exemptions on new energy vehicles (NEVs) purchases will continue through 2020 to boost the country's green development and retain a strong domestic market.

From Jan. 1, 2018 to Dec. 31, 2020, the new energy vehicles will enjoy free purchase tax, the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration said in a joint statement.

China has intensified efforts for years to promote the use of NEVs to ease pressure on the environment, offering tax exemptions and discounts on car purchases. The government also encouraged carmakers to build more NEV factories and improve the technology.

China saw robust sales growth of NEVs in the first four months this year with 360,000 NEVs sold, surging by 59.8 percent from the same period a year earlier.

The government earlier this month announced measures to boost car sales, such as prohibiting local governments from imposing any limit on the consumption and use of NEVs.
 
The first all-new Lotus in years will be a 1,971hp electric car | Ars Technica
Flush with Geely's funding, this hypercar marks the start of a new chapter.

JONATHAN M. GITLIN - 7/17/2019, 5:50 AM
Depending how old you are, the name "Lotus Cars" will mean different things. For some, it's fast-but-fragile F1 cars in the 1960s and 1970s. Or perhaps it's James Bond's submarine car. Or it's the lightweight, nimble Elise, variations of which have made up the bulk of its range since 1996. Regardless of which era you identify with, throughout those decades a common thread has always been the company's precarious financial situation. But that changed in 2017, when Geely became Lotus' new corporate parent.

Geely is the Chinese company that has been responsible for Volvo's renaissance since it purchased the Swedish automaker from Ford in 2010. And ever since news of the Lotus purchase broke, we've been wondering what the boutique British brand might be able to achieve. After all, the company has never lacked ideas, particularly those involving making cars lighter or making cars handle better (often the two are related). Many industry watchers have worried that we'd be faced with a souped-up SUV, something derived from Volvo's SPA or CMA platforms. That may still come to pass; just ask Porsche whether the Cayenne was a bad idea if you're unsure.

But before that happens—and before the Elise gets redesigned for a third generation—there will be the Evija. That's the name for its new all-electric hypercar, which is to be a low-volume halo car for the rest of the brand. Its specs are eye-opening, even among this rarefied class of vehicles.

The Evija will get a carbon fiber chassis (supplied by CPC), which together with subframes weighs just 284lbs (129kg), and Lotus is aiming for an overall weight of 3,703lbs (1,680kg). The battery pack will come from Williams Advanced Engineering, a spinoff from the Formula 1 team that was responsible for the batteries that powered the first generation of Formula E racers and the batteries that will power the new Extreme E electric off-road racers. At 70kWh, you can be forgiven for thinking it's nothing special. But Lotus says the Evija's battery will have a power output of 2,000kW.

Four wheels, four motors
All that energy will be fed to four motor-generator units, one for each of the Evija's wheels. Each motor will have 493hp (368kW) and 314lb-ft (425Nm), giving the car a hefty 1,971hp (1,470kW) and 1,254lb-ft (1,700Nm). The performance targets are equally impressive. Perhaps not the 0-62mph (0-100km/h)—under three seconds—or the top speed—above 200mph (340km/h)—for there are cars on sale today that can do that and more. But how does 0-186mph (0-300km/h) in under nine seconds sound? Lotus also says that 62-125mph (100-200km/h) will take under three seconds and that 125-180mph (200-300km/h) will be dispatched in less than four seconds.

"With the Lotus Evija, we have an extremely efficient electric-powertrain package, capable of delivering power to the road in a manner never seen before. Our battery, e-motors, and transmission each operate at up to 98% efficiency. This sets new standards for engineering excellence," said Matt Windle, executive director of sports car engineering at Lotus Cars.

Williams has designed the battery to be able to accept a charge at up to 800kW—once someone builds a charger this powerful, it should be able to get the battery up to 100% in nine minutes. Until that happens, Evija owners will have to settle for using some of the new 350kW CCS2 fast chargers, which Lotus says will take an Evija's state of charge from 0 to 80% in 12 minutes. However, a consequence of using a relatively small-capacity battery is a relatively short range—250 miles (400km) as determined by the (rather inaccurate) WLTP test scheme (which probably means closer to 210 miles when tested by the EPA).

Production begins next year, with the production run capped at 130 cars (to match the Evija's internal designation, the Lotus Type 130). But they won't be cheap. Prices start at $2.1 million (£1.7 million), and if you want to make absolutely sure one of those 130 cars will be yours, Lotus will gladly secure you a production slot as soon as you give it $310,177 (£250,000) as a deposit.
 
Svolt to make waves in power battery market
By Li Fusheng | China Daily | Updated: 2019-07-22 11:04

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Svolt, a battery maker established in 2018, aims to become a top three player in China. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China's electric car market, the largest of its kind worldwide, is no short of shooting-to-stardom stories. For instance, the country's largest battery maker, CATL, is merely eight-year-old and it has made onto the supplier list of carmakers from Volkswagen to Toyota and BMW.

Such success stories have inspired many startups to dream big, including Svolt Energy Technology.

A battery maker established in 2018, it will not see its first plant, located in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, to become operational until later this year, but the company's President Yang Hongxin said it has worked out a plan of an annual global capacity of 100 GWh by 2025 and eventually become a top three player in the country.

The confidence arises from its products, which are made of stacked cells instead of the commonplace jelly roll ones, and its cooperation with BMW in its infancy.

Svolt traces its origins back to 2012 as the power business unit of China's largest SUV maker Great Wall Motors.

The automaker inked a deal with BMW last year to produce electric MINIs, which has lent the Svolt team an opportunity to work with the premium carmaker.

Yang said his team was involved in the design of the electric car platform during the past two years and worked with BMW engineers in a lot of aspects, including battery cells, modules and systems.

"They gave us the help and support to work out mature products," he said. "We have made a lot of progress in terms of technology, procedures, strategies and production and could not have done it without their support."

Yang said he hopes Svolt to become of one of BMW's suppliers as well, adding BMW and Daimler will begin testing their products in August.

Some Chinese carmakers, including Great Wall Motors, have already started testing.

Svolt believes its products are competitive. Made of stacked cells, its batteries outperform the jelly roll ones by 5 percent in energy density, by 10 percent in life cycle but are 15 percent cheaper, according to Yang.

Other battery makers including Panasonic and CATL have plans to develop stacking cell batteries as well, but Svolt claims to be the pioneer in this aspect so far.

The company said it is making "good progress" as well on developing a cobalt-free lithium-ion battery - a goal of battery producers aiming to eliminate the pricey and increasingly scarce mineral.

With its products, Yang said he expects Svolt to make a breakthrough in the market. CATL, which dominates the market, accounted for more than 40 percent of sales in the first half of 2018.

"This is the result of insufficient competition," Yang said. "Normally, in any market one player will not have a market share of above 30 percent."

He said the situation may change soon, as China abolished the white list of battery makers in June, enabling more companies to play a level playing field.

In the same month, South Korean battery maker LG Chem teamed up with Chinese carmaker Geely to build a joint venture in China.

"In the long run, such competition will drive down the cost of batteries and benefit the electric car industry as a whole," Yang said.

Svolt is ramping up its efforts to seize its share. Its first Chinese plant, which is under construction, will have a capacity of 12 GWh by 2020. By the end of 2025, the combined capacity in China is expected to reach 76 GWh, with total investment reaching 26 billion yuan ($3.78 billion).

It is not limiting its ambitions to the country. Svolt said it is planning plants in North America and Europe as well. The European base, which is expected to cost 2 billion euros ($2.24 billion) and start production in 2022, will feature a research center and factories for battery materials, cells and modules with initial capacity of 20 GWh.
 
Chinese vehicle becomes Santiago's first natural gas bus
Source: Xinhua| 2019-07-28 13:17:18|Editor: Lu Hui

SANTIAGO, July 27 (Xinhua) -- A vehicle from the Chinese brand King Long will become the first natural gas bus to join capital Santiago's public transport system, the Chilean Ministry of Transportation and Communications said Saturday.

The Chinese bus will join Santiago's Metropolitan Mobility Network that integrates subway, rental bikes and suburban trains, and begin circulating in August, the ministry said.

It will serve the Route 104 operated by bus company STP Santiago and connect the communes in eastern Santiago.

The bus has a capacity of 101 passengers, including 30 seated and 71 standing, which is equipped with universal accessibility, air conditioning, USB ports and security cameras.

Santiago has become "a laboratory for various technologies," the use of this bus will show if electricity is an efficient alternative fuel for the public transport, Chilean Minister of Transportation and Communications Gloria Hutt told journalists.

STP's general manager Luis Barahona said that the incorporation of this bus "once again put us at the forefront of the use of eco-friendly technologies."

Compared to the diesel bus, natural-gas buses can reduce the emission of particles by 80 percent and nitrogen oxide by 90 percent, according to the Chilean government.
 
High-temperature vehicle testing site set up in Xinjiang
2019-08-02 10:50:53 China Daily Li Yan

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Aerial photo taken on July 29, 2019 shows the testing lane of a vehicle testing field funded by SAIC Volkswagen in Turpan, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. A vehicle testing field has been put into service in Turpan, a city known as "the land of fire" in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Wednesday. This vehicle testing field occupies an area of 23.35 million square meters, equivalent to the size of more than 3,200 football fields. It is funded by SAIC Volkswagen, aiming to test their products including petrol-based vehicles, new energy vehicles and automotive parts under extremely dry and hot conditions. (Photo by Han Xinliang/Xinhua)

Work on the world's largest site to test automobiles in ultra-dry and ultra-hot conditions has been completed in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and is expected to bring in returns of more than 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) every year, officials said.

Located in a windy zone of Turpan, China's hottest region, the test site, which is the size of 3,270 standard soccer pitches, has been built by China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group (CTCE) for the SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp Group) Volkswagen joint venture. Day temperatures in Turpan, known as "the oven" since ancient times, can reach up to 83 C in summer, while the sparse rainfall in the region has resulted in an evaporation rate of over 3,000 millimeters.

The SAIC Volkswagen Xinjiang (Turpan) Test Center can test safety performances in an ultra-dry and ultra-hot environment for more than 1,200 fuel vehicles and 400 new energy vehicles every year, in addition to over 8,000 types of automobile components, according to CTCE Cyberspace Office Director Song Heng.

Speaking at the launch ceremony of the test center on Thursday, CTCE Chairman Zhang Hechuan said the site, which took more than 1,000 days to build since June 2016, has passed the inspection and acceptance of German experts and local quality inspection departments, fulfilling CTCE's commitments to the Sino-German joint venture and the local government.

The project is seen as a vital cog in China's efforts to conduct automobile tests in high temperatures and ultra-dry conditions, and a major step in boosting automobile industry technologies. In addition it will also help promote the socioeconomic development in Xinjiang, he said.

Building the testing center in Turpan, however, has been a challenging task. Located in the Turpan Basin, which is spread over an area of 500,000 square kilometers, the area is deep within the Tianshan Mountain range of eastern Xinjiang, which has a landscape of deserts, gorges, sand dunes and wooded oases. It once served as a key point on the ancient Silk Road. Averaging 154 meters below sea level, Turpan is also the lowest point in China, second only in the world to the Dead Sea.

According to Sun Kai, a CTCE technician on the site, building such a test center was a daunting task as the strata had lots of sedimentary rock formations, while its surface was mainly saline-alkali deserts with an accumulation of thenardite, a sodium sulfate mineral, seen largely in salt lakes and arid regions.

The engineers overcame the stiff geological challenges by using foundation treatment technologies in the saline-alkali areas, he said.

The engineers also introduced 3D high-precision molding technologies to ensure construction quality and precision, Sun said. By improving the hydraulic system for rolling equipment and leveling control systems for pavers, Chinese engineers were able to break the monopoly of Germany and Japan in high-speed ring paving, he said.

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100 new Chinese-made electric buses arrive in Chile
Source: Xinhua| 2019-08-02 23:19:59|Editor: huaxia


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An electric bus, manufactured by Chinese company BYD, arrives in the port of San Antonio, in the region of Valparaiso, Chile, July 31, 2019. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas)

"China's contribution is significant because they have developed models and vehicles with very good features and of very good quality, and they are also lowering the prices," said Chile's Minister of Transportation and Communications.

SAN ANTONIO, Chile, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- After a 31-day journey from Shanghai, 100 Chinese-made electric buses landed here at the port of San Antonio, where local officials donning red vests gathered to welcome this latest addition to the Chilean capital's mass transport fleet.

The BYD-brand buses are equipped with Wi-Fi, USB ports, air-conditioning and other amenities, boasting better passenger experience than traditional petrol-powered buses running the streets in Santiago.

There are 203 Chinese-made electric buses already in service in Santiago's public transport system, drawing praises from drivers and passengers alike.

"China's contribution is significant because they have developed models and vehicles with very good features and of very good quality, and they are also lowering the prices," Chile's Minister of Transportation and Communications Gloria Hutt told Xinhua.

In late 2017, the Chilean government published a National Electromobility Strategy, which outlined actions to ensure that 40 percent of private vehicles and 100 percent of public transport vehicles would be electric by 2050.

Chinese buses have found a promising market in Chile, as the country is striving for its electric mobility and sustainability targets, said Hutt, adding another 83 BYD buses are arriving in Chile in two weeks.

BYD's representative in Chile Tamara Berrios said the quality buses have opened the door of the local market, as more buses are imported to enhance the local mass transit system.

BYD and other Chinese brands have made solid contributions to the electric technology market, where "China is an undisputed leader," said Berrios.

The new buses will run along Santiago's main east-west thoroughfare Grecia Avenue, which will become Latin America's first "electric corridor" for public transportation.

The Chilean government plans to have at least 2,000 electric buses circulating in Santiago by the end of 2020, with 300 to 500 buses serving surrounding communities.

Chile is now at the forefront of sustainable mobility, with one of the world's largest mass transit electric bus fleets, said Chilean Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt.

With an eye to hosting United Nations Climate Change Conference in December, Chile is making headway in promoting electromobility, she said.
 
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