Heavy-duty gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles sold in the capital must be up to State VI standard, which is equivalent to the Euro VI standard, from July, in order to clean up the air in the world’s largest car market, according to municipal authorities in Beijing.
The central government decided to roll out the VI standard in two phases, one in 2020 and the other in 2023. Fifteen provinces and regions have announced the plan of implementing the stricter standard ahead of the schedule in 2019. The State Council designated some areas, including the Pearl River Delta, to enforce the State VI standard by July 1, 2019. The State VI standard is expected to provide reductions of around 50 percent of emissions of major exhaust pollutants, compared with the current State V standard.
Because of the new standards, many automobile distributors are in a hurry to sell vehicles which only meet the State V standard at a cheap price, or they will have to move these polluting vehicles to regions which have not introduced the new rules.
But this is not a wise move, as all trucks sold and registered in the country should comply with the new standards as of July 1, 2020, said Hu Jianbing, a commentator for
The Beijing News.
It will be hard for some automobile enterprises with low-end technologies to upgrade their production in the short term. Yet, currently there are lots of vehicles up to the State VI standard in the automobile market. In addition, the cost of upgrading a vehicle with the State V standard is not very high. The real problem is whether the producers have the proper technology or not. This is particularly serious for domestic brands.
The government should set out to handle relationships between industrial chains, in an attempt to ensure automobile distributors, consumers and the State accept and adapt to the State VI standard as soon as possible, Hu said.
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