Vehicle manufacturers in China have largely lived in the shadows of their Japanese counterparts. However, since the onset of the green car race, it appears the gap is closing as many of the country’s emerging automakers aim to steal a march on their rivals.

The latest is SAIC Motor, the country’s largest car manufacturer, which now plans to invest 12billion yuan over the next three-five years to develop “new energy vehicles”.

The investment will be split between 41 projects with 2.1billion yuan to be put into commercialising these cars this year.

The company outlined a number of short-term objectives for the introduction of these green cars including plans to launch the Roewe 750 mild hybrid saloon car with a boost in fuel economy of about 20 per cent by 2010. It will also launch a plug-in version of the Roewe 550 mid-class saloon car with a 50 per cent reduction in fuel consumption by 2012; along with SAIC self-developed electric cars in the same year.

It also hopes to provide 1,000 units of new energy vehicles (which include electrics, ultracapacitor, fuel cell and hybrids) for the World Expo event to be held in Shanghai in 2010.