My next car may be coming from China ... or not

In news that should make Detroit wince, China has adopted a plan designed at making that country one of the world's leading producer of hybrid and all-electric vehicles. According this story in today's New York Times:

"China wants to raise its annual production capacity to 500,000 hybrid or all-electric cars and buses by the end of 2011, from 2,100 last year, government officials and Chinese auto executives said. By comparison, CSM Worldwide, a consulting firm that does forecasts for automakers, predicts that Japan and South Korea together will be producing 1.1 million hybrid or all-electric light vehicles by then and North America will be making 267,000."

The story outlines the problems in such an effort, including the limitations and high cost of electric cars and the problems China is having with exploding batteries. But it also says the majority of Chinese are first-time car buyers so they really don't have much to compare the electric cars to.