18 November 2015, Guangzhou. Geely Auto Group’s (Geely) announced its ambitious new energy initiative, Blue Geely, which will see Geely move from focusing on traditional combustion engine technologies to concentrating entirely on new energy vehicle sales and development.
As part of the Blue Geely Initiative, Geely Auto is pushing to overhaul its entire product portfolio from 2016 to 2020 with the mass introduction of new energy vehicles which will include pure electric, hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that will push Geely into being a market leader of automotive technologies in China
Geely has established five key aims that are an essential part of the Blue Geely Initiative.
1. Geely will meet and exceed Chinese government fuel directives to bring average fuel consumption to 5L per 100km by 2020
2. Geely will move to sell plug-in hybrid vehicles at a similar price level to its traditional combustion engine range
3. 90% of Geely Auto sales will consist of new energy vehicle sales by 2020
4. Geely will push forward with research into hydrogen fuel cells and metal fuel cells
5. Geely will become a market leader in new energy, light weight material technologies and intelligent and connected systems
Geely is committed to environmental concerns and improving the world in which it operates, hence Geely is committing to lowering its average fuel usage across the range to meet and exceed the Chinese governments mandated average fuel consumption of 5 liters per 100km (5L/100km).
By 2020 Geely aims for 90% of its vehicle sales to consist of new energy vehicle sales. Geely will achieve this by introducing three core technologies that will be made up of pure electric vehicles (EV), plug-in electric hybrids(PHEV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), these three technology solutions will be based around two existing vehicle platforms and one vehicle architecture. Furthermore, Geely expects that by 2020 its new energy sales will be split into 65% PHEV and HEV and 35% EV.
Geely’s FE and PE platforms will be used to create mid-range and high end pure electric and hybrid electric vehicles, with the first vehicle being the Geely Emgrand EV which is capable of 330km on a single charge. The Emgrand EV is Geely Auto’s first pure electric vehicle and is based upon the best-selling Emgrand series,the Emgrand EV boasts a 0-50kph time of just 4.3seconds and both rapid and slow charging facilities for use at home and public charging facilities, a full charge at a public fast charging station will take 48 minutes to reach full capacity.
By 2018 Geely aims to boost the range of its FE platform based electric vehicles to 400km which will use a maximum of 13kWh of electricity and then further boost range to 500km whilst using just 8kWh of electricity.
Geely has invested heavily in developing a global research and development footprint that has led to the creation of the China Europe Vehicle Technology Center (CEVT) in Gothenburg, Sweden. CEVT have been instrumental in developing the Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), a new generation of scalable architecture on which Geely will be able to develop a multitude of new products. Geely’s CMA vehicles will use a plug-in hybrid system with a 1.5Turbo Direct Injection engine and a 7 speed DCT gearbox which will allow for fuel consumption of just 2 liters per 100km, by 2019 this will drop to 1.8L per100km and then fall to 1.5L per 100km by 2020.
Geely has continuously carried out research and development work on electric hybrid systems over ten years with Geely developing its own unique hybrid electric solution. Geely will introduce the electric hybrid into A-Segment and A+ Segment vehicles in 2016 with expected fuel savings of 40% in the first phase, in the second phase this will increase to 45% by 2018 and by 2020 this will increase to 50%.
With the introduction of the Blue Geely initiative, Geely will save 4.2 million tons of oil and reduce Co2 emissions by 3 million tons when compared to traditional vehicle sales over the same period. Geely is committed to environmental concerns at every step of production; from supplier selection to end user emissions, Geely aims to create a mobile world that is greener than ever.
Geely’s global R&D footprint allows the company to develop and ensure the quality of industry leading technologies, with a global R&D staff of over 2500 engineers based in Gothenburg Sweden, Coventry UK, and Hangzhou China, Geely is well placed to make the Blue Geely initiative areality from 2016 onwards.
To further the Blue Geely initiative, by 2020 Geely will sell its plugin electric vehicles at a similar price level as current traditional internal combustion engine vehicles to bring new energy dreams to a wider populace.
Geely Auto Group CEO, Mr. An Conghui commented: “Geely is officially stating that it will be the first automotive company in China to reach the government’s vision for a 5.0L/100km fuel directive by 2020. We aim to allow consumers to realize their dream of driving powerful, extremely fuel efficient vehicles, we are extremely confident in our Blue Geely Initiative; it will become a core part of our corporate social responsibility and development plan. Blue Geely’s five core tenets will push Geely to the very forefront of the Chinese automotive industry with highly competitive vehicles.”