The Chinese government is planning to extend its extant subsidies for low-to-no-emissions vehicles all the way to 2020, according to recently published draft rules.
Previous to this decision, the current subsidy plan was set to expire at the end of 2015. The decision was no doubt at least partly made owing to the relative success of the subsidy program — which was created and put into practice as a means of reducing the country’s severe air-pollution problem.
The decision to extend the subsidies is no doubt being welcomed by the country’s major players in the EV market — such as BYD Company — and should go some ways toward helping the industry continue its growth there.
As a result of the decision, buyers of EVs, highly electrified PHEVs, and fuel-cell vehicles will maintain access to monetary subsidies, but these are expected to be scaled-down to some degree during the run-up to the year 2020 — with the scaling down expected to begin in 2016, according to the draft rules released by the Ministry of Finance.
As well as these subsidies, the government of China has been supporting EV adoption through a number of other avenues as well. As a result, electric vehicle production in China has surged in recent years. The first eleven months of 2014 actually saw such production surge five-fold as compared to 2013.
Given that the country’s government wants 5 million electric or fuel-cell vehicles on its roads by 2020, that rate of adoption and production may not actually be fast enough.
Presumably, the government there will be coming out with other ways of boosting said adoption in the coming months and years. Perhaps greater support for the country’s EV manufacturers?
As per the new draft rules, buyers of pure-electric vehicles will have access to subsidies of up to 55,000 yuan ($8,861), and those that purchase pure-electric buses will have access to up to 500,000 yuan ($80,558).
Image Credit: Air Pollution via Shutterstock
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
