On March 2, 2010, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute (SARI) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Formula Racing Development Ltd. (FRD) confirmed their partnership to work on and develop a “Green Energy” race car project. CAS and FRD will jointly establish “CAS Shanghai Advanced Research Institute FRD electric drive system R&D center” in the FRD facility inside the Shanghai International Circuit (SIC). JIANG Biao, Vice President of SARI and Kenneth Ma, President of FRD, signed the agreement.
The FRD electric drive system R&D center will be conducted around the core value of CAS—“Low Carbon, Green & Intelligent” to build up a technical innovation “ecotype” base. The center will mainly focus on the innovation and integration of technology together with engineering research to develop the original neo-technological research capabilities of neo-energy vehicles. The center is intended to enhance the innovation of neo-energy automotive industry through the promotion of the integration and commercial applications of core technologies.
According to “The plan to promote high-tech industrialization of neo energy in Shanghai”, neo-energy automotive industry is not only one of the major focuses of the Shanghai Five areas of neo energy industries, but also a major point of nine priority areas of high-tech industry that Shanghai determined to enhance. According to “The plan to promote high-tech industrialization of neo energy in Shanghai”, by 2012, Shanghai plug-in hybrid cars, electric cars will be available for consumption in market and the production of pure electric commercial vehicle will be in formation of segment sequence. By 2012, the production scale of Shanghai neo-energy vehicles will reach 90 billion yuan(RMB), which includes the dynamic oil mixed automotive, the high-performance pure electric vehicles, and the electric cars that use lithium iron phosphate power battery.
Through the process of industrialization, the FRD electric drive system R&D center decides to apply the neo-energy technology on the motorsport to change the “high oil consume” and “high carbon emission” image of the traditional motorsports that the FRD has become the best partner. The President of FRD, Kenneth Ma has been actively working on the development of the motorsports in China for a long time. The FRD has introduced lots of Formula motorsport series into China, such as Formula Campus, Formula Renault series, the Asian AFR Championship, Renault Clio Cup series and has become the unique official Asian promoter of the Formula Renault 2.0 series.
Therefore, the establishment of the FRD electric drive system R&D center will serve the R&D, production, detection, testing, and demonstration of Shanghai neo-energy vehicle and increase the speed of the development of Shanghai neo-energy automotive industry.