Charging posts for new energy cars are seen at Beijing Capital Airport. (Photo/China Daily)
(ECNS) -- Imported pure electric cars will soon be subject to a relaxed license plate lottery policy in Beijing, following on from a removal of traffic restrictions by the city on all such vehicles that took effect on Monday.
"There has been quite some time (for the municipality) to study the plan, which is one of Beijing's major tasks in 2015," an official with the local municipal science and technology commission told Beijing Business Today.
The official, who spoke with the guarantee of anonymity as the plan will only be officially announced by the municipal commission of economy and information technology, said a highlight of the initiative is the inclusion of imported pure electric vehicles in the city's new-energy-vehicle license plate lottery system.
Under existing rules, only domestically-made electric cars whose manufacturer has mastered some of the required core technologies can appear in the central and local promotion catalogs for new energy vehicles and enjoy government subsidies.
Foreign-brand pure electric cars do not have the luxury of enjoying such preferential policies and their sales are further dampened across the country as they are subject to the same license plate lottery system as conventional fuel-powered vehicles in cities like Beijing.
The official expects that easing the lottery method would help boost sales of imported pure electric vehicles in China.
Shanghai and Tianjin have included such cars in their free license plate policies for new energy vehicles.
Beijing will follow Shanghai in allocating part of the new-energy-vehicle license plates to imported pure electric cars but will not grant them subsidies, a source familiar with the situation told the paper, adding that imported pure electric cars would be offered the same tax reductions as domestic brands and will no longer be subject to the city's rotating mechanism for imposing traffic restrictions based on the last digit on a license plate.
Beijing has boosted the new-energy-vehicle quotas for 2016 and 2017 to 60,000 from 30,000 in 2015, the report added.
Jia Xinguang, an auto industry analyst, said the move would likely encourage investment by foreign brands in the construction of charging infrastructure, which will help ease a shortage in public charging facilities.
