A hybrid Dongfeng truck on show. The company expects production and sales of new-energy and energy saving vehicles to account for a fifth of Dongfeng-brand passenger vehicles by 2015. Da Wei / For China Daily

BEIJING - Dongfeng Motor Corp, one of China's largest automakers, announced last week that it will invest 3 billion yuan over the next five years to develop energy-saving and new-energy vehicles.

According to its plan, Dongfeng will work on technology for hybrid and pure electricity vehicles while continuing to improve the efficiency of its internal combustion engines.

It named 16 key projects in the plan, including research and development into purely electric cars, hybrid buses and some key components.

The company started research work on new-energy vehicles in the late 1990s. It then made concept cars powered by electricity as well as light-duty buses powered by fuel cell.