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26 experts from home and abroad jointly proposed policies for the development of new energy. In terms of energy, China’s automotive industry is currently facing a dilemma. On the one hand, with the development of the automotive industry, the supply of fuel is becoming increasingly strained. Given its non-renewable nature, if the day comes when oil runs out, who will bear the costs for future generations? On the other hand, electric vehicles, as recognized by most people, have yet to make any breakthroughs in the key technology of batteries. If this challenge cannot be overcome, who will cover the costs for those companies that have invested heavily in developing new energy vehicles? A journalist once heard a leader from a domestic automobile company say that the ultimate goal for the development of new energy vehicles is hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and this view seems to be widely accepted both domestically and internationally. The 11th Five-Year Plan also explicitly mentioned the development of new energy vehicles. However, in the just-passed year of 2007, 26 Chinese automotive power experts from home and abroad jointly sent a letter to the relevant authorities in our country, expressing their views on the policies and guidelines regarding new energy vehicles. The following will present the key points for the readers’ reference. Transportation and energy issues are urgent challenges facing China. China is a major energy consumer, yet it lacks abundant oil and gas resources; in 2005, oil imports accounted for 42.9% of China’s energy needs. China’s dependence on imported oil places significant constraints on its economic development and **security. To reduce dependence on imported oil as soon as possible, vehicle power technologies should be developed specifically for this purpose. Misunderstandings about \"hydrogen energy\" lead to misconceptions, which in turn affect the policies aimed at solving transportation energy problems. Energy is a source of power that can be obtained from nature. There is not a large amount of hydrogen in nature; therefore, hydrogen is not an energy source, let alone a new energy source. Hydrogen production requires energy conversion, so that hydrogen can be used as an energy carrier. “The slogan of \"hydrogen energy\" has led many people to mistakenly believe that using hydrogen can solve the problem of energy for transportation, and they naturally conclude that efforts should be focused on the full development of hydrogen-powered vehicles. This misunderstanding can affect **the company’s decisions in addressing transportation and energy issues. Since taking office, the current U.S. president has been criticized for refusing to join the Kyoto Protocol and blocking Congress from passing legislation to reduce average vehicle fuel consumption. To reduce criticism, he strongly promoted \"hydrogen energy\" and the \"hydrogen economy\" to show his commitment to energy and environmental issues. American automobile companies also willingly or intentionally create the impression that they are developing hydrogen technology to solve all energy and environmental problems, so there is no need to put pressure on them to reduce fuel consumption. In the summer of 2004, several American physicists jointly published an article in a physics journal criticizing the theories of \"hydrogen energy\" and the \"hydrogen economy\"; since then, no U.S. president has spoken about \"hydrogen energy\" again. Whether it is appropriate to develop vehicle propulsion technologies that use hydrogen, or whether hydrogen vehicles will become the mainstream of future vehicles, we should not make the simplistic mistake of assuming that hydrogen is a new form of energy when dealing with this crucial issue of energy; such mistakes should not interfere with serious consideration of solutions to energy problems. The leapfrog development of technology must follow scientific laws; one cannot \"dig the canal first and then look for a water source, or wait for water to arrive.\" The pursuit of leapfrog development in vehicle power technology is a good aspiration. However, at present, the domestic sector has failed to pay attention to the basic logic in achieving a \"leapfrogging\" development in vehicle power technologies. If new energy can first be converted into electrical power for use in the future, electric vehicles equipped with batteries could make efficient use of this new energy. The key to manufacturing electric vehicles that can travel for long distances is the capacity of the battery. At present, the capacity of batteries is not sufficient to meet the needs of electric vehicles. Therefore, in 2000, American automobile companies stopped developing electric vehicles. Unless there are major breakthroughs in battery technology, the market application of electric vehicles will be very limited. Another possible approach is to produce hydrogen using electrical energy, and then convert the chemical energy of hydrogen into electrical energy through fuel cells. Two energy conversions result in losses, making its efficiency very low. In fact, the key to the widespread use of fuel cell vehicles lies in the raw materials used to manufacture fuel cells and their costs. Currently, fuel cells require large amounts of rare precious metals. If fuel cell vehicles are used on a large scale, not only will the cost of raw materials rise significantly due to increased demand, but it is also a question whether there are enough precious metals available on Earth. Therefore, to adopt fuel cell vehicles, efforts must first be focused on developing fuel cells that are low-cost and can be produced in large quantities. From a logical analysis perspective, it is clear that until long-standing technical challenges such as battery capacity and the reliance of fuel cells on rare precious metals are overcome, it cannot be determined that electric vehicles or fuel cell vehicles will inevitably see widespread adoption in the future. Therefore, we should not try to \"overcome\" these technical challenges, but rather \"develop in advance\" those issues that can be resolved quickly if they truly become necessary, such as the development of battery components and technology platforms, the assembly of fuel cell vehicles and electric vehicles, as well as their demonstration and promotion. At present, this so-called “crossing” is akin to “digging the canal first before looking for a water source or waiting for water to arrive”; it may prove to be a futile effort, and in worse cases, it leads to the abandonment of seizing technological high grounds that hold significant practical and strategic value. Even if electric vehicles or fuel cell vehicles can be widely used in decades to come, the key battery technology will still be in the hands of others. What’s more serious is that such premature determination regarding future cars, along with the focus on advancing development in advance as part of \"later-stage engineering technology,\" results in the urgent need to reduce vehicle fuel consumption being ignored and sidelined. As a result, the situation of relying on inefficient engines for a long time to consume valuable oil and gas resources has not received the attention it deserves. China has not actually taken part seriously in the fierce competition in the world’s crucial field of fuel engine technology; instead, it has chosen its own path and worked hard on its own. Since cars will continue to rely primarily on low-cost fuel engines for the next few decades, China will find itself in a very vulnerable position in another decade or so, forced to continue paying high costs to import automotive fuel engine technology from abroad. It is recommended to adopt a pragmatic approach by developing efficient fuel-powered technologies in order to reduce reliance on imported oil as soon as possible. Unlike so-called \"new energy\" vehicles, which will likely take decades to be widely adopted, it only takes a few years to develop fuel-powered technologies that can significantly reduce vehicle fuel consumption. If the average fuel consumption of cars could be reduced by 25%, China’s dependence on imported oil would be significantly diminished. For the next few decades, oil and gas will remain the primary energy sources for transportation; reducing the average fuel consumption of vehicles is of great significance for China’s economic development and energy security. It is technically possible to significantly reduce the average fuel consumption of cars. In addition to hybrid vehicles, which are more expensive but have the potential to reduce fuel consumption by 30%-40%, experimental results from abroad show that new low-cost piston engine technologies can also reduce an automobile’s average fuel consumption by 25%. Companies abroad are also working hard to develop automotive fuel-powered technologies. Before 2000, the U.S. Department of Energy allocated substantial funds each year to support the development of direct-injection gasoline engines, while after 2000 it gave strong support to research on homogeneous charge compression ignition engines and diesel engines. The EU and the UK **have also allocated substantial funds to support the research and development of homogeneous charge compression engines and high-speed diesel engines. Contrary to foreign efforts to develop automotive power technologies to reduce fuel consumption, and given the energy shortages and the critical importance of automotive power technologies for **economic and energy security, the domestic automotive industry has abandoned the development of power systems for passenger vehicles over the past two decades, relying entirely on joint ventures to import product designs and production technologies from abroad. In recent years, there has been an emphasis on independent development, but attention has often been focused only on the design capabilities of automotive engine products, with little real focus placed on the development of fuel-powered technologies. China’s automotive industry has also been misled by the slogan of \"hydrogen energy,\" which has distracted it from focusing on fuel-powered technologies, particularly new technologies for cost-effective and efficient piston engines. To change the situation in which the domestic automobile industry has not invested adequately in the development of fuel-powered systems, it is recommended that **the leading companies in this industry assist in establishing a center for the development of automotive power systems**. The goal of such a center is to significantly reduce the average fuel consumption of automobile products, with the results obtained there being applicable to the products of other automobile companies as well. To avoid wasting R&D resources, specific R&D projects should be subject to open and thorough discussion, reasonable criteria for evaluating various automotive power technologies should be established, and projects that are promising, viable, and cost-effective should be selected for development. Until there are significant breakthroughs in large-capacity batteries and fuel cells that can be produced in large quantities, the automotive industry should not engage in the research and development of electric vehicles or fuel cell vehicles, whose future remains uncertain. If battery technology makes significant progress in the future with **’s support, developing electric vehicles or fuel cell vehicles, along with the necessary components and technical platforms, will be nothing more than an engineering challenge. Driven by commercial interests, the development work will be completed soon.