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According to the latest data released by China"s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the nation rolled out 3,770 units of new energy vehicles in May, up by 98.32% year on year. The production volume of plug-in hybrid commercial vehicles stood at 539 units, down by 4.26%. The production volume of electric commercial vehicles totalled 366 units, down by 29.21% year on year.
New energy vehicles is an inevitable trend in China. The promotion of the maturing new energy city buses will play an important role in commercializing new energy vehicles. Still, it cannot be ignored that new energy buses are faced with some challenges.
First, despite subsidies offered by both central and local government, electric buses remain high in price for many cities. It is still a luxury for many cities to buy a vehicle priced at 1.5 million RMB. Shenzhen, which is one of China"s richest cities, now only has 1,200 electric buses in operation. It is revealed that the city is planning to buy another 2,000 units of electric buses by the middle of 2016. Taking the subsidies of 500,000 RMB for every vehicle into account, the city government still needs to pay a bill of one billion RMB.
Second, the majority of China"s cities have not yet built comprehensive recharging facilities for plug-in vehicles. Third, there is still a long way to go before mainstream public transport companies to recognize new energy vehicles. Many are still doubtful about the current green vehicles" reliability and fuel efficiency. Plus, the local protectionism is still a big problem yet to be solved. The encouraging news is that now related governments have promised to combat such a problem. Many companies have expressed their sincere wish for the establishment of sound checking and monitoring mechanism, which is essential for the promotion of new energy buses.