© REUTERS/ Jason Lee
Currently in the planning stages of the ban, including detailing the move's completion date, China will force engine makers and car companies to pivot away from fossil fuels, speeding the implementation of electric vehicles in a bid to meet global climate standards laid out in the 2016 Paris Accords.
Government agencies in Beijing and around the country are working with regulators and businesses to set a timetable for the dramatic shift, seen to be a harbinger of world economic growth, as Chinese consumers represent the largest car-buying market on Earth.
According to vice minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin, speaking at an auto forum in Tianjin on Saturday, the move will profoundly affect the path of China's auto industry, cited by Bloomberg.
"Many countries have adjusted development strategies," said Xin, adding, "Some countries have worked out a timetable to stop production and sales of traditional-fuel vehicles."
"Now the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has launched a study as well, and will work with related departments on a timetable for our country," stated the Chinese official, cited by the South China Morning Post.
As China moves to ban vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, so too will automakers around the globe increase their shift toward electric vehicles, decreasing the necessity of worldwide crude oil imports and changing the dynamic of global investment, resource use and commodity markets.
Speed is the order of the day, and not only in the vehicles themselves, as automakers responding to the Chinese announcement have been quick to announce shifts in their own strategies.
Honda will introduce an electric car to Chinese buyers in 2018, according to Honda China COO Yasuhide Mizuno, in cooperation with Chinese business entities Guangqi Honda and Dongfeng Honda, creating a new brand.
Other automakers and investors have quickly followed suit.
Chinese startup automaker Nio will begin selling its ES8 battery-powered SUV as soon as mid-December, according to a company statement.
Nio is collaborating with the Chinese state-owned Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group, which itself is currently involved with Volkswagen to introduce an electric SUV in China as early as 2018, according to reports.
Reader Comments
What's been holding back on that is the willingness to create infrastructure to accomodate the technology.
Big Oil isn't going to go that route so long as their cash cow keeps on giving.
And this is technology that is currently known openly; let alone 'Black Box' technology that surpasses even hydrogen tech.
Will China convert from gas fuel to another source for the electric cars? who knows, maybe initially it will be gas;
But there are many more options to supplement and/or convert away from fossil fuels along the way.
Not silly at all.
enviro-heads cannot think past their noses though.
You are the first person i have heard of to discuss this aspect at all. People look at me stupidly when i bring it up.
The hippies/enviroheads in america aren't realizing that for their e-cars to work they have to use high-loss high voltage transmission lines that get their energy from dubious sources. These sources include what the enviros would call "salmon killing" hydro dams, "earth killing" coal fired power plants, and "bird killing" wind or solar farms.
This is why no one should really take them or their entire movement seriously, they are fascist hypocrites who dont mind the death and destruction they cause (even if it is the same instances they damn their ideological opposition over). They want to save the world from the lesser peoples who are too ignorant to know they are lesser people. They want to control global industry, to save the environment of course. Finally, they value no other opinion than their own. They are like rabid dogs waiting to attack anyone for the same "crimes against the globe" that they commit.
So by them pushing electric cars, the auto industry and the enviroheads are increasing the amount of industrial pollution from rare earth mining. Rare earth mining creates vast amounts of radioactive by product waste as most rare earths are found in conjunction with uranium ores and other highly radioactive elements. Solar panels create such waste in their production as well. You are not lessening your pollution, you are just changing and displacing it's footprint.
Australia is even shipping the radioactive waste from their rare earth element processing factories to indonesia where it is being blended into cement for cement walled houses that the govt. builds for the poor people there. There are studies that show that low levels of radiation keep you healthier so they use this as an excuse to push the enviroheads radioactive waste on other communities around the globe instead of just doing without.
To sum up, MOST, not all enviro head hippies who rant about apple products and ecars and ignorant narcissistic bigots who either do not care that much about their so called causes, or they do not actually care to educate themselves about the ramifications of their own actions.
Russia and S Africa are the two top producers of palladium necessary for the engine so lots of claims to make a substitute. Claims only so far. I suspect that the electric car will eventually be the 'poor man's car' while the combustion engine roars ahead. Also noticed the claim that low levels of radiation are not necessarily detrimental but I guess cancer patients would dispute that. Its actually a body stress and as the birds of Chernobyl have demonstrated, the body redirects resources. The birds lost their colorful feathers reverting to brown. What are we going to lose? Can you read this still?
The news is now noting cases of excess CO and CO2 from drivers. Will we all be wearing CO and CO2 ppm badges like miners and first responders and fire dept and police. You bet!! I for one don't believe there is any reason for the change from chimney furnace exhaust to the off the ground exhaust and intake from the basement wall except to keep the CO and CO2 closer to the ground to improve city air above. Do you know that turning on your car next to your neighbors intake saturates the air with 1500 ppm of CO? And all of us in city limits are on 30 or 50 or 75 foot lots. A news item that is somehow overlooked.
That's because you're an unthinking, greedy, capitalist moron.