CRI听力:Electric Cars Make Headline Again

Official figures from the Ministry of Transportation show emissions from car exhaust account for 31 percent of the country's total air pollution.

In an effort to bring that figure down, the central government has been supporting a series of subsidies and tax exemptions for people who purchase new energy vehicles.

On top of that, electric and hybrid vehicles are also exempt from license plate restrictions during smog red-alerts.

People who buy new-energy vehicles are also able to avoid going through the license-plate lottery system in-place in a number of cities in China, including Beijing.

"I bought my hybrid car because of the incentives from the local government, which included a free license plate. The subsidies also knocked the price of the car down from 280,000 to 218,000 yuan."

Stats from the China Automobile Industry Association show around 290-thousand new energy vehicles were sold in China during the first 11 months of the year.

This is over 4-times the number of new-energy vehicles sold in China during 2014.

To keep the numbers up, the central government is providing incentives for municipal governments which reach new-energy vehicle sale targets.

Vehicle producers are also being given incentives. Yan Chen, CEO of Chinese electric car maker Denze says this is helping drive the industry forward.

"The expansion of the electric car market in China has helped improve the techniques of making key components as well as the whole vehicle. A lot of automakers are generating high-mileage vehicles. This means the battery technology has been improving, and the government is also encouraging the entire industry to rise to the next level. I think in just three to five years, all the electric vehicles will be able to perform as well as gasoline cars in mileage, safety and reliability."

However, there are still a number of issues to be addressed.

Chinese auto sector analyst Wang Liang says a lack of charging stations is a major hurdle.

"The market is still being driven mostly through government incentives. This means the new-energy vehicle sector is still comparatively weak, making it difficult to prioratize the installation of charging facilities, especially in heavily populated cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou."

Plans are in-place to spend some 120-billion yuan in the coming 5-years to create 4.5 million charging polls across the country.

Right now, there are only around 31-thousand in China.

Analyst Wang Liang says one of the biggest challenges for the government is to how to deal with the costs over the next 5-years.

"Right now, the ability to reduce costs isn't very good. It's hard to justify the costs compared with gas-powered vehicles. What the government needs to think about is how it's going to sustain electric vehicle sales in the coming five-years as it scales back its subsidies."

The current plan is to roll back the nation-wide 40-percent electric vehicle subsidy program over the coming 5-years.

Chinese authorities hope to have 5 million new energy vehicles on the roads by 2020.

For CRI, I'm Li Jianhua.