Oct. 27 (NBD) -- Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd. will invest more than 100 billion yuan (15 billion U.S. dollars) to electrify its entire product portfolio by 2025.

This constitutes an important part of the Chinese auto manufacturer's new-energy strategy, Project Shangri-La, which aims at transforming the carmaker into a technology services company.

Zhu Huarong, President of Changan Automobile, said that the company will build three dedicated new-energy vehicle platforms by 2020 and will end the sale of traditional fuel vehicles by 2025.

It is predicted that with the growth of new-energy vehicles, traditional fuel vehicles will be eliminated from the market in the coming decades.  

Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that 77,000 new-energy vehicles were produced while 78,000 were sold in September 2017, representing year-on-year growth of 79.7 percent and 79.1 percent, respectively.

During the January-September period, the output of new-energy vehicles was 424,000 units while the sales volume stood at 398,000 units, up 40.2 percent and 37.7 percent from the same period of last year.

In addition to the R&D and manufacturing of new-energy vehicles, the company will commit itself to collaborating with other firms to obtain technical support in other areas like car-sharing and power cells. 

Mr. Zhu told NBD that partner economy will be a general trend. He further noted that Changan Automobile is willing to open its product designs, technologies, platforms, and business model to those who are interested in cooperation.

Changan Automobile has signed strategic cooperation agreements with electric car company NextEV, Internet giant Baidu, and information technology company iFLYTEK.

At The Computing Conference held in Hangzhou early this month, the automaker reached a partnership with e-commerce behemoth Alibaba.

Mr. Zhu also revealed to NBD that the company plans to buy stakes in CATL, a Ningde, Fujian-based lithium-ion battery enterprise, in an effort to tap deeper into the power cell area.

According to Zhu, Changan Automobile will work with its partners to seek advancements in the fields of autonomous driving, car-sharing, intelligent interconnection, power cell research, and ways of charging.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn