China Bans 553 Cars Over High Fuel Consumption

In a heavy push towards greener vehicle production and reduced emissions, the Chinese government has banned the production of 553 cars, mainly sedans for failure to meet a certain pre-described fuel economy figure. The announcement was made by the China Vehicle Technology Service Centre and includes cars from several global automakers like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, General Motors and Volkswagen. The list also includes cars that do not meet certain new emissions standards that have been recently prescribed for cars in China. The list of banned cars has not been completely revealed though, although most on the list are said to be of the sedan body style. The ban on production has come into effect on January 1, 2018. Incidentally, in 2017, the sale of electric vehicles in China has grown by over 50 per cent to over 3.36 lakh units a year and is expected to grow even further this year.

China has some of the worst air quality in the world, possibly trumped only by the likes of cities in north India such as New Delhi (or the NCR region in general), Lucknow, etc. The strict approach towards improving air quality has resulted in the ban on production of this long list of cars. Incidentally though, even though the number might appear to be big at 553 models, it forms only a small percentage of the total cars built in China by global automakers (with joint ventures in China) or local automakers that have been infamous for building poor replicas of popular cars and SUVs globally.

That said, while the air quality in New Delhi seems to be getting much worse every year, the air quality in places like Beijing seems to be improving - and rather quickly. 2017 is said to be one of the biggest improvements in terms of air quality in China (and especially Beijing) with a whopping 20 per cent reduction in PM2.5 as compared to 2016. In fact, as compared to 2012, the air quality in most major cities of China has seen over 35 per cent improvements. Contrary to what popular belief is though, this is not only due to the curbing of production or a crack down on the automotive industry. The bigger change in pollution control has come via the controlling of industries in and around urban areas and more importantly the move from coal to natural gas in various forms of energy needs.