Beijing to do more to fight smog

After China’s first pollution “red alert” this week, the government is regulating the number of cars on roads.

“I am contemplating (an electric car) as the brand new policy means electric cars are not restricted from driving on significant pollution days while other kinds are”, said Wang Chao, 26, sizing up electric vehicles at a BYD Co Ltd (1211.HK) (002594.SZ) auto dealer on Wednesday.

Those subsidies and other government measures have helped pure-electric vehicle sales soar almost five-fold to 113,810 nationwide in the first 10 months of the year, putting China on track to overtake the United States as the largest market for electric cars this year.

But instead of an environmental wake-up call, prospective buyers are considering electric cars in Beijing out of a newfound practicality.

Regardless of the electric vehicle market’s potential, Peter Ford, The Christian Science Monitor’s Beijing correspondent, describes the blinding pollution as an immediate threat. “As the day progressed the thick grey haze that blanked the city grew ever more impenetrable”.

In case you missed it, Beijing has spent most of this week under air pollution red-alert following an air pollution index of ten times over the maximum World Health Organization recommended value. Last week, when the PM2.5 readings were three times higher, the authorities did not declare a red alert. The result was a drop of 30 percent in the general pollution level, which means that the air quality in China’s largest city is still sub-par, but at least it’s getting better.

Dong Yang, head of China’s automakers association, said on Thursday that sales of electric vehicles can not maintain their current strong growth, and he predicted that pace of growth will slow next year. Electricity generation, though still powered largely by coal in China, does offer a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as recent studies about EV use in America’s dirtiest grids confirm.

And while a full transition to electric vehicles might cause more emissions from coal-fired power plants, Carnegie Mellon experts say such a move could still be a good thing. It goes on to say the car’s purifying system can “say goodbye to big city pollution”.