The Future of Transport
The Future of Transportation: Motor Vehicles
Henry Lee, Senior Lecturer at Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Henry Lee is the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Co-Chair of the School’s International Infrastructure Program, and a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. Before joining the School in 1979, Mr. Lee spent nine years in Massachusetts state government as Director of the State’s Energy Office and Special Assistant to the Governor for environmental policy. He has served on numerous state, federal, and private boards and advisory committees on both energy and environmental issues, and has worked with private and public organizations, including the InterAmerican Development Bank, the State of Sao Paulo, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior, the Intercontinental Energy Corporation, General Electric, and the EPA. His recent research interests focus on energy and transportation, geopolitics of energy, China’s energy policy, global climate change, regulation of electric and water utilities, and public infrastructure projects in developing countries. Mr. Lee is the author of recent papers on the security and economic implications of expanding LNG trade, China’s oil initiatives in the Middle East, and a forthcoming paper on the economic viability of electric vehicles.
Panelists
Lucia Green-Weiskel, Program Manager, Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (CET).
Ms. Green-Weiskel is in charge of the climate change program at iCET and has served as the manager of the CECR project. She holds a BA in International Relations from Hampshire College and an M.Sc. in Asian Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She delivered numerous lectures on conferences about China climate change and is the author of many articles about China’s environment and policies.
Hongyan He Oliver, Former Research Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School
Hongyan He Oliver holds a Ph.D. from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Stanford University, a Master’s degree in environmental economics and policy and a Bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences from Beijing University. Former research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, Ms. Oliver is an expert on sustainable transportation in China, in particular technologies and policies concerning vehicle pollution control, fuel efficiency improvement and fuel quality. She was also a panelist on New York Times Expert Roundtable on China Environment.
Pricilla M. Lu, Chairwoman, Zap Jonway Electric Vehicle
Dr. Priscilla M. Lu is General Partner and Founder of Cathaya Capital, a private equity venture fund for China focused at technology based mature businesses leveraging cross border alliances with an emphasis in Clean Tech and Health Care. She is Chairwoman of ZAP, an Electric Vehicle Company where Cathaya Capital is the largest shareholder, and Vice Chairman of Asia Pacific Medical Group, one of the largest private hospital chains in China. She is also a co-founder of Better World International Ltd. focused on building out infrastructure for electric vehicles.
She was China advisor to Mayfield for more than 5 years and helped found GSR Fund (overseeing US$1B investments) in China. Formerly she was CEO of ViDeOnline, a digital media company delivering secured broadband and mobile networks to service providers in China. She was Founder, Chairman and CEO of interWAVE Communications for ten years and took the company public on the NASDAQ. interWAVE built the largest number of mobile GSM and CDMA networks in Africa at the time, with over 165 networks worldwide.
Dr. Lu was a Bell Lab Scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories for 16 years, where she led efforts in digital switching and networking, and developed the early technologies in CMOS VLSI in microprocessors.
She has a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, Madison and holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Northwestern University, funded as a Bell Labs Scholar.
Dr. Lu has over 50 patents in telecommunications and networking. She is on several Boards, including Northwestern University’s Engineering School’s McCormick Advisory Board.
Panel Director: Vincent Yue
This panel will address current transportation policies in China and the opportunities and challenges facing the private sector as it seeks to deploy clean vehicles in the domestic market.
Background
With the world’s most populous cities, a huge land mass and an increasingly mobile labor force, China’s development has depended and will continue to depend on ever-increasing transportation capacity. However, providing that capacity will be extremely challenging, particularly in urban areas already suffering from severe congestion and pollution. According to estimates from the McKinsey Global Institute, China’s urban population will grow from about 600 million in 2008 to 926 million in 2025 and more than one billion in 2030. While this new market has been a boon for companies like GM, which now sells more cars in China than in the United States, and General Electric, which develops and sells jet aircraft for Chinese carriers, it is becoming clear that following the Western transportation model with a vastly larger, more concentrated population will create unsustainable levels of energy demand, congestion, and pollution.
China has resorted to extreme measures in its largest cities, where the rising middle class’ demand for private vehicles is becoming untenable; the “bicycle kingdom” is becoming the “car kingdom.” For example, Beijing is strictly limiting the number of new vehicle license plates in 2011, which predictably set off a car-buying frenzy at the end of 2010. The government has also provided extensive support for clean vehicles, especially electric vehicles. With domestic companies like BYD manufacturing electric vehicles domestically and the State Grid Company directed to build a network of charging infrastructure, experts agree that by 2020 China will lead the world in electric vehicle deployment. However, electric and natural gas vehicles will at best put a dent in the growing fleet of predominantly internal combustion engine (ICE) driven vehicles.
Of perhaps greater importance are the upgraded bus systems, which have been for many years the predominant mode of mass transportation in China. In many cities these are being supplemented with dedicated lanes for new, more technologically advanced bus rapid transit (BRT) initiatives as well as new underground rail mass transit. The 12th Five Year Plan contains substantial commitments around transportation. The plan specifies new airports, highways, and especially new railroads. China will build a rail system at a scale the world has never seen, with huge public investment in long distance high speed rail, commuter rail, and urban mass transit heavy rail. China will likely lead the world in high speed rail, aiming to create links between all cities with more than 500,000 people, requiring 21,400 new miles of track. Additionally, the Plan cites electric vehicles as a “strategic” industry, and we can expect continued subsidies and incentives for companies throughout the electric vehicle supply chain as well as for consumers.
This panel will discuss China’s transportation challenges in the context of energy and environmental issues. Discussion will focus on policy instruments that both provide additional transportation capacity while mitigating emissions and demand for gasoline, which China must import in ever-increasing quantities.
Questions
- What are the most critical transportation challenges facing China today?
- How should policymakers balance transportation needs with energy and environmental constraints?
- What are the prospects for alternative modes of transportation, particularly high-speed rail and electric vehicles?
