Chinese automakers are making a dash to develop new energy cars to cater to the potential high demand arising from customers who are increasingly becoming environment conscious.

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation Group (SAIC), China's largest automaker, is leading the pack with an over 12-billion-yuan investment in the research and development of hybrid engines and is planning to begin the manufacturing of its own-brand of fuel-saving vehicles in 2010.

Li Jirong, vice-president of SAIC, said that the Chinese automotive industry would soon experience a bottleneck unless it could succeed in shifting its focus to upgrading their research and production capabilities to build clean and energy-efficient cars.