The head of Johnson Controls Inc's battery unit believes China could adopt electric cars faster than elsewhere because of its size and comparative lack of reliance on gasoline for transport.



Alex Molinaroli, president of the Power Solutions unit, said China's government would likely lead the way through policy to provide vehicles to the many among the country's 1.3 billion people who now rely on bicycles and scooters.



'The next step up from that is going to be some sort of vehicle, (but) it may not be a vehicle that would be acceptable in both Western Europe and the U.S.,' Molinaroli told the Reuters Global Environment Summit on Tuesday.



'They can't go everywhere on a bicycle, and they all can't afford a $20,000 to $30,000 vehicle, but they have to move people around.'



Molinaroli expects to see golf cart-like vehicles, which would not be allowed on U.S. roads, driven in China, where his unit has a Shanghai technical center and development deals with carmakers SAIC Motor Corp and Chery Automobile Co.



'They'll look a lot different, the vehicles there, but it's going to put scale around a business much quicker there than it would in other parts of the world,' Molinaroli said, adding that India should also lead the way given its population and recent developments in its auto industry.



'If one in 100 folks around the world end up in electric vehicles, just the sheer numbers say that China and India will have a real place in it,' he said in a phone interview.



He pointed to the Nano, a four-seater unveiled by India's Tata Motors Ltd this year that will be the world's cheapest car, in the $2,000-plus range. While it was not electric, it showed how cars in China and India could be produced under dramatically different cost structures.