A company in east China's Anhui Province has announced that it has developed a high-performance electric car, whose major technical features have reached or surpassed that of similar overseas products.

Guo Defa, manager of the Zhaocheng Electric Vehicle Technology Co., said the car is capable of carrying four people and traveling up to 80 km per hour for a maximum of 273 km.

The car consumes 15 kilowatt hours of electricity per 100 km and has a maximum climbing capacity of 18 degrees, said the manager.

He said three decades of research and development on the electric vehicle has enabled the company to acquire the basic technology, such as its lead-acid power storage battery and special drive engine.

The manager said the battery is as good as the best similar overseas products in terms of energy efficiency and recycling potential, adding that 95 percent of the battery can be recycled.

The electric car, or model ZC 7050 A, was developed in cooperation with Qirui Automobile Co. of the Shanghai Automobile Group Co.

The car will cost 110,000 yuan (13,400 U.S. dollars) but the price will be lowered to about 10,000 U.S. dollars with mass production, the manager said.

The price is much lower than that of other electric cars developed in China and overseas, which use much more expensive nickel-hydrogen and lithium storage batteries.

China's major car producer Dongfeng Automobile Group Co. unveiled its first concept of the electric car earlier this year in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and some universities.

(People’s Daily December 17, 2001)