Detroit Electric in talks with Chinese officials over technology sharing, market access

United States electric carmaker Detroit Electric is in talks with Chinese officials about gaining greater market access in exchange for transferring technology, as it aims to ramp up exports of its latest high-performance roadster to the world’s biggest electric vehicle market.

“We are in negotiations with Chinese authorities for a potential collaboration that will bring the cutting-edge technologies, for instance those related to the battery, to the country,” Detroit Electric chairman Albert Lam said.

Lam, a former executive director of British sports car manufacturing giant Lotus Group International, made the comments during a ceremony to unveil its roadster SP:01 in Hong Kong.

The SP:01 sports car is assembled in England on a Lotus Elise aluminium chassis with carbon fibre. It has a range of 288 kilometres on a single charge and weighs about 1,100 kilograms, making it the lightest high-performance electric sedan worldwide.

The Hong Kong dealer of the roadster, which started taking orders from Thursday, said the model is targeted towards a more premium end of the market than rival Tesla, whose flagship Model S sedan ranks as the best-selling electric vehicle in the city.

“We will be selling it [SP:01] at a price of over HK$1 million,”said Richard Lee, chief executive of Wo Kee Hong Group, which is also the sole distributor of Ferrari and Maserati vehicles in Hong Kong.