China is considering temporarily easing quotas designed to boost production of electric cars to help automakers badly bruised by the coronavirus pandemic to revive slumping sales, people familiar with the matter said.
Policymakers in the world’s biggest auto market may also delay the implementation of a new emission particle restriction by six months to help the car industry, which has suffered a 79% drop in sales in February and expects a fall of around 10% in the first half of this year.
The United States had already planned to relax vehicle emissions rules. President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday completed a rollback of vehicle emissions standards adopted under predecessor Barack Obama. This will require 1.5% annual increases in efficiency through 2026 – much weaker than the 5% increases under the previous regime.
“Policymakers acknowledged that automakers are strained to promote electric models when overall demand is slowing. They want the auto industry to recover steadily this year,” one of the four people familiar with the matter said.
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