Top 10 Chinese Electric Car Companies
Today, China is both the largest manufacturer and consumer of motor vehicles in the world. That figures, considering the bustling population and the booming industrialization. There are many electric vehicle companies in China. While most of them are considered as entry-level companies, they are already giving Tesla some serious competition. The government of China plans to roll out at least 1 million electric cars by 2020 and many more after that. As you read our list of Chinese electric car companies, you will see what they offer in models, styles and sizes. You will see why China is the country to look up to when it comes to the manufacture of electric cars.
By 2019, there were hundreds of electric sedans in the market. Companies such as Geely have made captivating cars with different charge mileages starting from 200km to 600km. The most popular vehicle brands in China are already chipping in to contribute to the EV industry. As of 2017, there were more than 650,000 electric vehicles produced in China. With the world headed in the all-electric direction, by 2021, the electric vehicle industry in China will be fully mature.
Keep reading. Here, we will bring you reviews of BYD, SAIC MOTOR, FAW, GEELY and other top companies that are spearheading the production of electric vehicles in China.
China wants to dominate the electric vehicle industry. That is why there are so many companies making stunning sedans, SUVs, vans, hatchbacks, trucks, buses and other electric vehicles.
1. BYD 比亚迪
BYD stands for Build Your Dreams. For a company that started back in the early 1990s as a battery recharging company, it has really come far. Today, they not only make rechargeable Lithium ion batteries for mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices, but they have also released more than 100,000 units of electric vehicles into the market.
Their most popular car is the Denza, and it seems to be sweeping the market by storm. This car is similar to Tesla 3 even in price. This company has brought engineers from Ferrari and other leaders in the performance vehicle industry in the world.
This company has partnered with renowned investors such as Samsung, Daimler and Buffet Warren via his Berkshire Hathaway Group. With such serious partners, you can see just how committed this company is in its bid to produce high-end motor cars.
BYD is not only a producer of electric sedans, vans and SUVs, but they have tens of thousands of buses and trucks in service in various places in the world, including North America. Today, BYD is ranked as the number one electric vehicle manufacturer in the world. In the US, BYD is a publicly listed company with 60 percent of its shares owned by American investors.
Official website: : https://en.byd.com
2. SAIC MOTOR 上汽集团
With more than $3 billion set aside for EV investment, this Shanghai based motor maker ranks top in the list of Chinese electric car companies. Since 2011, this company has been in a partnership with General Motors, something that has helped SAIC to target international markets. It has been making a lot of headway into India and other Asian markets. This is a state-owned motor vehicle maker, which has been in the market for decades.
Some of SAIC’s flagship products include ROEWE RX8, a stunning SUV with sunroof, nice headlights and many more features. It also owns MARVEL X, another groundbreaking electric SUV. They also have buses, vans and trucks under their portfolio. Their business spreads over passenger and commercial vehicles. Their portfolio keeps growing and today, they have sold millions of vehicles all over the world.
In 2018 alone, SAIC Group sold over 7 millions motor vehicles. Not only does the company own the rights to MG, but it also releases every Volkswagen vehicle in China. They also have a new Vision I concept vehicle, which is a self-drive vehicle. They say they made it to showcase what the future of cars looks like.
Official Website: http://www.saicgroup.com/english/index.shtml
3. FAW 中国一汽
FAW has representation in more than 100 countries in the world. From Africa, Asia and other parts of the world, you will find the FAW brand on many roads. Completed in 1956, you can imagine just how much headway the First Automobile Works has made into our roads from that time to the present. If you check on their website, you will see a section for innovation. There, you can learn about their strategy for electric vehicles and their vision for the future. Part of their mission statement says that they want to evolve today’s dreams into tomorrow’s reality.
In line with their mission statement, FAW has opened different centers in different cities to deal with certain aspects of innovation. There is the Advanced Technical Innovation Center in Beijing, which was established in 2017. Then there is the AI R & D, which was established in 2017 in Silicon Valley, California in the US. Their Forward-looking Technology R & D Center in Munich, Germany was also opened in 2017 to spearhead innovation into the future aspects of the motor vehicle industry.
Some of their flagship vehicle brands include OLEY, BESTURN B30, FAW BESTURN X40 and FAW BESTURN B50. They have sedans, crossover SUVs, full SUVs and even limousines that are fully electric under their fold. Bingo, Hongqi, Sitech and HAIMA are some of their most popular electric vehicle brands.
Official website: http://www.faw.com/
4. GEELY 吉利汽车
Under the GEELY brand name, you will find electric vehicle models such as the Emgrand electric vehicle, which has many stunning features. For example, you can travel on a single charge for 300km. This is the first pure electrical car for GEELY. In just a short time, you can charge this car from 0 to 48 minutes of driving. This compact sedan is stylish, sleek, comfortable and durable. As you can see here, 300 kilometers for every full charge is quite good and it will go a long way in reducing your carbon footprint.
Other models from GEELY continue getting better especially in mileage per charge. For example, their Emgrand GSE, which is an SUV, can deliver 460km per charge. In April 2019, the Geometry, a pure electric sedan was launched across the world. This car can offer up to 500km on a single charge, a combination of city and highway driving. With such high numbers, you can safely conclude that GEELY has successfully positioned itself as the best Chinese electric car company.
GEELy is headquartered in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. It acquired Volvo Cars, also called Volvo Cars Group in 2010. In 2018, it acquired almost 10 percent stake in Daimler Motors. This shows you how this company is committed to rolling out some of the safest and most luxurious brands of cars in the market.
Official website: http://global.geely.com/
5. BAIC GROUP 北汽集团
BAIC is a state-owned motor vehicle manufacturer that has been making cars, buses, trucks, SUVs and other automobiles for decades. It stands for Beijing Automobile International Corporation. This company also has a partnership with South Korea’s Hyundai Motors. Today, they have many electric vehicles under their fold. In 2017, their BAIC-EC series fully electric car sold close to 80,000 units in China alone. It was actually the top selling plug-in car for the year 2017.
All of the electric cars under BAIC will be produced under their electric subsidiary BJEV. In fact, they already have 6 fully electric SUVs lined up for 2021. By early 2019, this company had sold more than 65,000 electric cars. This was close to what they had sold for all of 2017. In addition, they dedicated a 50,000 square foot facility for the development and production of electric car components. This laboratory runs in partnership with Daimler and 14 other partners.
Some of this company’s bestselling Evs are BAIC EX series with a range of 415km on a full charge, BAIC EU series with 400km and BAIC EC series with 200km. As China moves from fuel powered to electric powered cars, BAIC is increasing funding for research and development into the new energies of the future. That is why it makes it to any list of Chinese electric car companies.
Official website: http://www.baicgroup.com.cn/
6. DFM 东风汽车
The state-owned Dongfeng Motor Corporation is headquartered in Wuhan in Southern China. When it comes to output, that is, the volume of vehicles produced, DFM ranks among the top four companies in China. With its advanced Research & Development center, DFM has won more than 150 awards for its innovation.
DFM has been in the vehicle manufacturing industry for some time. Some of their flagship brands include Dongfeng Fengshen, Fengxin, Dongfeng Fukang and Dongfeng Jun Feng to name but just a few of them. This company partners with other vehicle makers such as Nissan, Citroen, Honda, KIA and Renault. However, the Dongfeng Fengshen is the company’s own brand of electric vehicle. It has sedans, SUVs and crossovers under its fold. They have stylish sedans and crossovers, SUVs and MPVs.
By 2019, Dongfeng Motors had a plan to open an EV plant in Cairo, Egypt. They said this would be the base of distribution of electric vehicles to Africa, Middle East and other parts of Asia. However, they wanted to test their vehicles against the harsh climate of Egypt.
Official website: https://www.dfmc.com.cn/
7. JAC MOTORS 江淮汽车
By 2018, JAC Motors was making a lot of headway into tens of African countries. But this is not the only place where they were making progress. In the area of innovation, they have been making a lot of progress in the area of electric vehicles.
JAC Motors is state-owned and has some of the highest output volume in China and many parts of Asia. For example, in 2012, they released 490,000 units into the market. Of course, this number has not only grown with time, but they have also added pure electric sedans, crossovers, SUVs, vans, buses and trucks into their lineup. This automobile maker is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui.
Their pure electric vehicle history starts with the JAC J3 EV, which was released into the market in China in 2010. It had a short range of 110km only on a full charge. However, since then, there have been many improvements. One of them is that all the pure electric vehicles by JAC are sold under the iEV series.
In April 2019, JAC released plans spreading as far as 2021 for Evs. They were planning to release models A432, S432 and S811 over three years spanning 2019 to 2021. They would also release seven upgrades to different models over the same timespan.
Official website: https://jacen.jac.com.cn/
8. Chery 奇瑞汽车
The Chery Motor Company was established in Wuhu, China in 1997. Over time, they have made certain improvements to their cars. Today, they offer many pure electric models and a few hybrid models. The history of Chery with electric cars goes as far back as 2009, when they said that they had made a pure electric car. They named it the S18. This car was also called the Chery Riich M1 and it went into production in 2010.
Today, Chery has many electric cars on offer. The most popular one, albeit small, seems to be the Chery eQ1, a 3-door hatchback that has a range of 180km on a full charge. The car takes a maximum of 6 hours to charge. Of course, other pure electric cars have been built on the advanced 3rd generation pure electric platform, the same as has been used on the EQI. These include Chery BEVS11, Chery BEVJ00, Chery EAS11 and BEVS111 to name but just a few of them. These and more models place Chery on the list of Chinese electric car companies.
Official website：https://www.chery.cn
9. GWM 长城汽车
GWM stands for Great Wall Motors and what a befitting name it is. This company was established in 1984 and since then, it has been supplying the Chinese, Asian and other markets with different models of trucks, sedans, SUVs, trucks, buses and vans. With its headquarters in Baoding, Hebei, this company has the fame of making China’s largest SUV and pickup trucks. It has overseas production facilities in Iran, Bulgaria and Russia.
Fast forward to the present, this company uses the Pi4 (plug-in) platform for 4WD, FWD and RWD models that are pure electric. In fact, it is on this platform that they released the VV7 GT PHEV and WEY VV7 PHEV luxury SUV models. The flagship product is the WEY luxury SUV, and therefore it was also among the very first models to be released on pure electricity.
However, they also have the honor of launching what they call the world’s cheapest electric car – the Ora R1. This small five-door hatchback is targeted at young urban dwellers. Started in 2019, this pure electric car has been doing very well. The car can do a maximum of 301 km on one charge and can do a maximum speed of 102km/h. GWM has since then launched this car in India.
Official website: http://www.gwm-global.com/
10. CHANGAN 长安汽车
When choosing a Chinese electric car company to buy your pure electric car from, you mostly consider several things. One of them is how far a car can go on one charge. Here, Changan Automobile Company has really excelled. Some of their models include Changan E-Pro, which has a mileage of 400km. We also have Changan E-Rock with a mileage of 600km. These two are SUVs. Sedans include the Changan EADO EV, which offers a range of 405km and for hatchbacks; there is the Changan CS15 with a range of 351km.
On the other side of the price spectrum, you also get lowly priced EV cars such as the Changan Benben EV that offers 310km. All of these vehicles share one thing – safety, and true to their name, Chang means lasting and An means safety.
In early 2012, the first procession of pure electric car from Changan graced the streets of Beijing. This was the first among many other spectacular moments that would come later, including winning awards. For example, in 2018, the EADO EV460 won the award for the pure electric car of the year.
Changan is state-owned and it is headquartered in Chongqing. Established in 1862, this company is more than 150 years old. It has been four decades into making automobiles in different capacities such as light trucks, passenger cars, vans and microvans.
Official website: https://www.changan.com.cn/
Conclusion
If you want to buy an electric car in China, you have to look for a good Chinese electric car company. Here, we have brought you 10 of them and we hope you will find a fitting car from one of them. Whether you want a sedan, an SUV, a hatchback, a truck or even a bus, you have seen the companies that offer them.
Having realized that the electric vehicle industry was not mature and had thus not been overexploited by the west, Chinese automobile companies went at it by full force. Today, they have models of pure electric vehicles in almost every size. The history of electric vehicles in China stretches back to more than 30 years. Over that time, they have made remarkable milestones. The government says that their intention is to reduce air pollution and lower their dependency on fuel. Our list of Chinese electric car companies has just 10, but there are many more.
