Serious air pollution drives the sales of greencars

Beijing now has overtaken Shanghai to be the largest market of greencars in China. This can be ascribed to the murky smog haunting Beijing and the implementation of driving restriction policy which only exempts electric vehicles.

Beijing’s government has launched “red alert” on serious air pollution which extremely restricts people’s walking. The terrible weather however drives the purchase of alternative energy vehicles which have also been announced to be free of the restriction policy by government since June this year.

The production and sales of alternative energy vehicles both soar despite the auto market in Beijing shows downturn throughout this year. The production and sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles even grow exponentially in nearly two months.

The monthly sales of alternative energy vehicles of BAIC have increased from around 1，500 units to 2，300 units since September and have reached 3，100 units in November, according to an insider of BAIC. The main reasons of increasing sales lie in that buying alternative energy vehicles has no longer been decided by lottery and that there is not any limitation on driving alternative energy vehicles.

So far, Beijing has built more than 1，500 public charging piles for electric vehicles with more than 50% distributed within the fourth ring road and more than 60% within the fifth ring road.

Beijing has promoted a total of 23,200 units of alternative energy vehicles by September this year, which makes it surpass Shanghai. At present, there are 4,486 units of electric vehicles for leasing in Beijing, and the number is expected to break 6000 by the end of this month.