GM and SAIC Create PATAC for EV Development

GM & SAIC signing — Chairman Hu Maoyuan and General Motors Co. (GM) Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson sign cooperation agreement

General Motors and Chinese automaker, SAIC Motor Corp. Ltd., have signed a new agreement expanding and reinforcing a previous pledge of cooperation signed in November 2010.? The new agreement establishes Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC) to jointly develop key components and vehicle platforms in China.? Under the agreement, teams of SAIC, GM and PATAC engineers will design and engineer new electric vehicle components, as well as vehicle structures and architectures.

Vehicles resulting from the partnership will be sold in China under Shanghai GM and SAIC brands. SAIC and GM will use the architecture to build electric vehicles around the globe for their own purposes. Product details and timing will be announced at a later date. ?

?The co-development of this new electric vehicle architecture demonstrates the broad range of benefits made possible by the strong partnership between SAIC and GM,? said Tim Lee, president of GM International Operations. ?For almost 15 years, our two companies have forged some of the industry?s most successful joint ventures. This unprecedented level of cooperation is another demonstration of our companies? commitment to work collaboratively.?

The collaboration is especially important and timely following the announcement of a number of more stringent emission and fuel consumption regulations around th

According to Chen Hong, president of SAIC Motor, ?Our agreement will enable SAIC and GM to take advantage of economies of scale and get new technology to the market faster than by going it alone. It will help bring about our goal of leading the automotive industry in new energy vehicles and our vision of sustainable transportation, which we introduced at World Expo 2010 Shanghai.?

The electric vehicle architecture will be the first to be co-developed by the two companies. Their Shanghai GM joint venture introduced the Sail electric concept vehicle late last year. Establishing PATAC as the engineering lead for the electric vehicle architecture demonstrates not just the strength of the GM-SAIC partnership, but also the confidence and trust the companies have in one another to accomplish an aggressive and challenging project.