Global automakers urged China to soften quotas for sale of electric and hybrid cars

Almaty. July 14. Silkroadnews – Global automakers have urged China to soften quotas for sale of electric and hybrid cars, Reuters reports.
“Global automakers have urged China to delay and soften planned quotas for sales of electric and hybrid cars, saying its proposals will be impossible to meet and would severely disrupt their businesses”, the report reads.
The appropriate joint statement by the world’s major automakers was sent to China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology on June 18 asking to delay the requirements introduction for at least a year and make them more flexible.
To combat air pollution China, as reported, plans to increase a share of electric and hybrid cars up to a fifth of all auto sales by 2025, with the quota system introduced starting in 2018. Besides, Beijing considers these steps as a means to support domestic car industry and recovery its competitiveness.
“The strict new rules plus planned harsh penalties for non-compliance, such as the cancellation of licenses to sell non- electric cars in China, has the potential to cause much pain for some automakers in the market”, report reads.
In turn, Russian information portal Vista News reports that Chinese automakers are going to produce 49 models of electric cars by 2020.
“China plans switching to new energy sources, thus, Chinese automakers have planned to produce 49 of 103 new models of electric cars to be presented to the world by around 2020. The US consulting company AlixPartners suggests, by 2020 China could have nearly two-thirds of the world’s production capacity for lithium-ion batteries and also invest to produce electric cars, thus, a half of all new cars could be originated from China”, report said.
China’s automakers, as noted, already account for 96% of electric vehicles sold in the country. In 2016, China sold 350,000 electric cars, which is still less than 2% of total vehicles sales. According to the publication, in May, sales of electric cars in China grew 49% compared to the same period of last year. For a month China’s market has been added with nearly 40,000 new electric vehicles, for the most part these are the domestic models unknown at the global market.
Reportedly, representatives of Chinese companies expect that by 2025 electric vehicle batteries will significantly exceed the production of internal combustion engines. Reducing the cost of batteries is projected to drive up the consumers’ demand.