Beijing and Wuhan join local Chinese governments to bolster EV sales by offering subsidies to buyers

Name: Chinese tech giant Baidu to release self-driving car in 2023
Uploaded: 2022-06-27T13:30:18.000Z
Duration: 1 min 52 s
Description: Chinese tech giant Baidu to release self-driving car in 2023

China’s local governments are offering cash subsidies to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles in a bid to spur consumption and revitalise the sector

Beijing is offering a cash subsidy of 10,000 yuan (US$1,495), while Wuhan is offering 8,000 yuan to replace petrol-powered cars with NEVs

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Volkswagen electric vehicles are assembled at a factory operated with local partner SAIC Motor, in Shanghai. Local Chinese governments are offering cash subsidies to boost sales of green cars. Photo: Bloomberg

Daniel Ren

Published: 9:30pm, 27 Jun 2022

China’s local governments are offering cash subsidies to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles (EVs) in a bid to spur consumption and revitalise a sector hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic curbs.

The mainland’s capital Beijing and Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, will provide financial aid to owners of petrol-powered vehicles to replace them with new-energy vehicles – pure electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell cars.

The moves by the two cities come after Shanghai and Guangdong province launched similar schemes in the past few weeks to stimulate sales of green vehicles, a bright spot in the mainland’s slowing economy.

“Local governments are aware of the role the EV industry can play in driving economic growth and keeping jobs,” said David Zhang, a researcher at the North China University of Technology. “The incentives, aimed at helping NEV carmakers to make up for the lost ground caused by lockdowns [in Shanghai and Jilin], will generate additional sales of several hundred thousand new cars.”

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Chinese tech giant Baidu to release self-driving car in 2023

On Monday, 10 government departments in Wuhan said in a joint statement that internal combustion engine (ICE) car owners will be given a grant of 8,000 yuan if they replace it with an NEV. The subsidies are on top of a 3,000 yuan subsidy – offered by the Wuhan government earlier this month to encourage the purchase of battery-powered vehicles.

A day earlier, the Beijing municipal government offered a subsidy of 10,000 yuan (US$1,495) to buyers replacing ICE cars with NEVs.