Auto makers push hybrid cars

Auto makers are promoting hybrid vehicles at the Shanghai Auto Show this week because of poor sales in fully electric vehicles, The Wall Street Journal reported. Manufacturers at the show are offering a variety of gasoline-electric and plug-in hybrids but say they are bearish on purely electric vehicles because demand simply isn’t there. Despite government subsidies and aggressive campaigns promoting electric vehicles, there were only 11,375 battery-powered cars sold in China in 2012, compared to 19.3 million total vehicles sold in the county that year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. China’s government wants to have 500,000 hybrid and electric cars on Chinese roads by 2015 and 5 million by 2020 in order to curb pollution and demand for oil.