Beijing is about to introduce a variety of new policies that should help to speed up the rate of electric vehicle adoption in the city, and help to reduce its dangerous levels of air pollution, according to state media reports.
Among the most significant of these new policies is a £13,000 subsidy for electric vehicles. Another is a complete bypass of the infamous license plate lottery.
“Officials are working on plans to introduce a new maximum purchase subsidy of 120,000 yuan (£12,850) for electric cars, while also allowing electric vehicles to obtain license plates without participating in the city’s plate lottery,” BusinessGreen reports.
A significant expansion of the public charging facility infrastructure is one of the other exciting policies. It’s estimated that about 5,000 new electric vehicles will hit Beijing’s roads this year, including around 3,000 electric buses and taxis.
The aggressive new policies are largely being put forward as a means to help address the city’s significant air pollution problem.
“China is home to seven of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, according to a study from the Asian Development Bank and Beijing’s Tsinghua University, while car ownership is continuing to soar.”
The total annual cost for all of the illness, death, and lost productivity caused by air pollution in China is estimated to be higher than $100 billion by the World Bank. That’s equal to about 3% of China’s annual gross domestic product. And of course these numbers don’t include the enormous damage done to the natural environment — the extinction of many animals, including the baji river dolphin, have been linked to the high levels of pollution in the region.
Image Credit: Beijing Smog via Wikimedia Commons
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