China to ban petrol and diesel car sales
The world's largest new car market drops bombshell; electric car boom predictedChina will ban the sale of combustion engine cars, petrol and diesel, in the near future, putting massive pressure on global car makers to step up their electric car efforts.
China's deputy transport industry minister Xin Guobin confirmed the policy shift overnight, telling the Xinhua News Agency that "research on formulating a timetable to stop production and sales of traditional energy vehicles" has started.
The bombshell comes as China reiterates its desire to clean up its polluted air, which causes an estimated 4400 deaths per day, or 1.6 million deaths per year in the world's most populous nation.
China will join other countries including Britain and France which have proposed similar changes to phase out petrol and diesel cars. The UK will ban the sale of all pure petrol/diesel cars from 2040.
The timeline for China's combustion engine ban is not yet clear but the new regulations would work with previously stated legislation that stipulates 20 per cent of all new cars sold in China by 2025 must be EV or plug-in hybrid.
As the world's largest new car market, with just over 28 million cars sold in 2016, and trumping US sales of around 17.5 million (Australia nudges just over 1 million, by comparison), the policy shift by Chinese authorities will force the hands of many global car makers to speed up EV development.
It will also likely support China’s own domestic manufacturing industry, which has already shown its electric vehicle acumen through projects such as the record-breaking Nio EP9 electric supercar.
"Those measures will certainly bring profound changes for our car industry's development," said deputy minister Xin, although the Chinese politician didn't elaborate on the particulars of the new laws.
China is already the world's biggest consumer of EVs or electric vehicles and that trend looks set to continue with this latest policy shift. It's understood that the move will also reduce China's reliance on imported oil.
The announcement is likely to steer billions and possibly trillions of dollars in automotive research, development and manufacturing towards EVs. Xin added that the policy change will "elevate new energy vehicles to a new strategic level".
While industrialised countries, Australia notwithstanding, offer subsidies or tax breaks to make EVs more appealing to buyers, China will change the state of play by shifting the responsibility to car makers via a quota system.
In this way, Chinese law would require car makers to ensure 8 per cent of their vehicles are EV or hybrid in 2017, rising to 10 per cent in 2019, 12 per cent in 2020 then 20 per cent in 2025.
It's expected that more countries will enact similar policies in the coming years to curb pollution.
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