Vehicle manufacturers in Chongqing municipality have scaled up their efforts to tap into the electric car industry and inject new impetus in the automobile industry.

To highlight the city's recent transformation of the industry, officials and enterprises at Liangjiang New Area invited central media organizations to take a tour there on June 6. The delegation visited the factories of Chang'an Automobile Group, Chongqing Lifan Group, Beijing Automotive Group and the workshop of the car steel producer ThyssenKrupp.

During the visit, Chang'an Automobile Group demonstrated a safety test at their 150 million yuan ($22.83 million) car collision lab. The test involved a car valued at 150,000 yuan running into a wall at speed.

Employees explained that for every new vehicle model released, approximately 40 cars will be sacrificed in laboratory safety tests. The tests are conducted with varying car speeds, collision angles and obstacle materials to simulate traffic accidents and ensure car safety.

Zhang Hui, vice-president of the Chang'an Automobile Engineering Institute, said each car in the experiment is installed with a human surrogate connected with 100 sensors, each costing of one million yuan.

Costs other than the car samples used in collision experiments are likely be as high at 100,000 yuan, according to Zhang.

The company plans to focus on the development of new energy vehicles and invest 18 billion yuan in the next ten years to support research and development, supply chains and operations to produce high-quality electric cars.

Chinese motorcycle and automobile manufacturer Lifan is another company with lofty ambitions for the new energy market.

The company is expected to roll out 21 new energy vehicle models and achieve 500,000 electric car sales and 300,000 sales in the car rental business by 2020.

Lifan Pand Auto, a car hailing app for new energy vehicles, aims to reduce carbon emissions and make transportation more convenient. Car batteries used in cars provided on the Pand Auto app can be changed in a mere three minutes, shorter than the seven minutes it takes to refuel conventional cars.

Pand Auto has set up over 60 service terminals in Chongqing since its launch in November last year.

The company is set to expand its business to the city of Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan Province next month.

The new energy cars made by Lifan are also expected to be used as official government cars in Chongqing.

A staff member of Chang'an Automobile Group introduces the electric vehicles to a group of journalists from China's central media organizations in Liangjiang New Area on June 6. [Photo/ Xinhua.net]

The Panda Auto electric vehicle produced by Chongqing Lifan Holdings Co, Ltd. [Photo/ liangjiang.gov.cn]

Edited by Jacob Hooson