Electric vehicle manufacturers in China produced thrice as many units in May as they did in the same period the previous year.
Shanghaidaily.com, citing a ministry of industry and information technology release issued on Wednesday, has reported that the production of pure electric passenger cars rose 300 percent to 9,922. Also, the number of hybrid vehicles produced rose four-fold to 4,923.
In the first five months of this year Chinese automakers have rolled out 53,600 new energy vehicles, which is about thrice the production in the same period last year.
The Chinese government has been pursuing various measures to reduce pollution and has been promoting new energy vehicles in a big way.
In March, the Chinese ministry of transport set target of 300,000 new energy commercial vehicles by 2020. The target also included 200,000 new energy buses and 100,000 new energy taxis and delivery vehicles.
Also, earlier this year, the ministry of commerce announced that China was to continue building charging facilities in cities and allow tax exemptions and subsidies on vehicle purchases.
In May China had announced new tax exemptions for electric vehicles as part of the country’s efforts to combat pollution.
The country has announced that new-energy cars including pure electric commercial cars, plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel-cell commercial cars, will be exempted from vehicle taxes.
The proposal was to make way for halving vehicle tax for users of energy-saving cars and ships.
China has witnessed a three-fold increase in the production of new energy vehicles year on year to 25,400 in the first quarter of 2015. Various measures taken by the Chinese government to promote and support such vehicles supported the growth.
