Chinese investors flock to EVs with long-term view
The Chinese Government is continuing to back electric vehicle technology aggressively, as part of its ongoing battle against pollution. According to Automotive News, that enthusiasm is leading Chinese investors to show more interest in US electric-vehicle companies than they might otherwise. This article uses the example of America's Wheego Electric Cars, whose CEO, Mike McQuary, found investment funds readily available in China, where they had not been in the US. In Beijing, 2013, McQuary met with venture capital firm GSR Ventures, who agreed to fund Wheego as long as it focused on the Chinese market. "They have a long-term view of the new-energy sector and EVs in particular," McQuary says of Chinese investors.

Often, Chinese investors want to focus on the China market.

GSR was "happy to invest in us as long as we turned our eyes to China," McQuary says.

Though it has dealers and sales in the U.S., the Atlanta-based company now focuses on selling its small EVs -- used by municipal governments, at airports and as delivery vehicles -- in China.

He can't discuss sales volume or where the vehicles are manufactured, McQuary says. But the company is still in business, which it might not have been without the Chinese investment.

"China seemed like a much bigger chance for Wheego to be a big success," he says. "The subsidies they offer over there, and the government support and pressure for EVs to be successful, really trumps what they are doing in the U.S."

Smith Electric Vehicles also found a savior in China. The Kansas City, Mo.-based company manufactures medium-duty, commercial EVs. It sold around 800 EVs in the United States from 2010 to 2014 to customers including DHL and Coca-Cola, but it couldn't make money at such low volumes.

It needed cash and a bigger market so it could scale up. That came from Hong Kong-listed FDG Electric Vehicles, a Chinese company with two EV manufacturing plants in China as well as battery production and r&d operations. Smith, whose electric vans have logged millions of miles on U.S. roads, could provide added EV manufacturing expertise.

The Chinese company "had the resources, the money, the engineers [and] the government support, but they had no practical working knowledge" of how to produce an EV, says Bryan Hansel, former CEO of Smith.