China's State Council has released plans to introduce subsidies to customers and manufacturers of electric vehicles (EV's) in an attempt to encourage the numbers produced and sold. Even though only 8,159 EV's have been sold in China, the government is adamant that it will encourage production and sales to increase, in order to achieve its massive target of 5 million EV's by 2020. The aim is to reduce the country's dependence on oil imports, and reduce its carbon emissions.
The government announced a $4.19 billion subsidy program in May which will cover electric cars, plug-in hybrids, normal hybrid cars, and vehicles with energy saving engines.
The Chinese government intends to reduce the average fuel consumption of all vehicles to 6.9 litres per 100km by 2015, and 5 litres per 100km in 2020. The energy efficient, hybrid, and electric vehicles will have an average fuel consumption of 5.9 litres pero 100km in 2015, and then 4.5 litres per 100km in 2020.
China is the world's largest car market, however according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, sales have recently fallen due to increasing oil prices.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More