China Restarting EV Subsidies, Says BYD Chairman

China’s latest electric vehicle subsidy program recently ended, back in December, but now it looks like a new program to replace is already on the fast track to approval. BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu was quoted as saying that a new program could be implemented as soon as April.

Details of the new subsidy are as of now unknown, but the previous one amounted to around $9,700 per vehicle, so there’s hope the new one will also be a significant one.

The BYD chairman also stated that the Denza EV, which is being developed cooperatively with Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, will be released by June 2014, which is around 6 months later than had been previously estimated.

This news of a new nationwide EV subsidy program is coming on the heels of Beijing’s announcement of its own £13,000 EV subsidy, and the announcement of strict country-wide fuel economy standards.

Recently, Reuters reported that the Chinese government would enact its first fleetwide fuel-economy mandate for new vehicles, which were projected to be about 34 miles per gallon by 2014 and about 47 mpg by the end of the decade.