Buick, a division of General Motors, announced on Monday that it has put its Velite 6 all-electric vehicle on the Chinese market and will provide 5,000 units to the car-sharing platform EvCARD, according to its official Chinese website.
The Velite 6 is manufactured at the Wuhan plant of SAIC General Motors, a joint venture between Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and the US automaker. It is the JV’s first EV for sale in China, with a base price of RMB 165,800 (USD 24,700) after governmental subsidies are applied.
The first 5,000 Velite 6 models will be put on the road starting April 28 to test the waters of the car-sharing market, said Buick.
The markets for shared on-demand vehicles (Mobility as a Service/MaaS) in the United States, the European Union, and China will collectively be worth USD 1.4 trillion by 2030, as projected by accounting firm PwC in its 2018 annual auto report.
PwC added that China’s MaaS market should surpass that of the United States by then.
Contact the writer at jingli@kr-asia.com