Many places have introduced measures to promote automobile consumption
2024-08-14
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
China Economic Weekly reporter Niu Chaoge | Beijing report
The subsidy standard for scrapping and renewal has doubled, many places have relaxed car purchase restrictions, and additional car purchase quotas have been issued... Recently, "policy packages" to promote automobile consumption have been frequently introduced in many places across the country.
With the vigorous development of new energy vehicles and the increase in residents' demand for cars, there are constant calls to relax purchase restrictions. Recently, relevant departments have repeatedly suggested in documents that local governments should relax purchase restrictions according to their actual conditions.
In addition to relaxing purchase restrictions, the car trade-in policy has also been continuously "strengthened", with the subsidy standard for purchasing new energy passenger vehicles that meet the standards increased to 20,000 yuan.
Policy push: many places relax purchase restrictions
In March this year, the State Council issued the "Action Plan to Promote Large-Scale Equipment Updates and Trade-in of Consumer Goods", which proposed "optimizing automobile purchase restrictions in accordance with local conditions"; in May, the State Council issued the "2024-2025 Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction Action Plan", which proposed "gradually canceling restrictions on the purchase of new energy vehicles in various places"; in June, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments jointly issued the "Measures on Creating New Consumption Scenarios and Cultivating New Consumption Growth Points", proposing to expand new scenarios for automobile consumption, encourage cities with purchase restrictions to relax vehicle purchase restrictions, and increase car purchase quotas.
Many places are also actively promoting implementation.
Data from the Ministry of Public Security show that as of the first half of 2024, there are 20 cities with a car ownership of 3 million to 5 million, of which Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Tianjin have purchase restrictions; cities with a car ownership of 5 million to 6 million are Shanghai, Suzhou, and Zhengzhou, of which Shanghai has purchase restrictions; cities with a car ownership of more than 6 million are Chengdu, Beijing, and Chongqing, of which Beijing has purchase restrictions.
On July 19, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission stated that in order to gradually solve the car needs of car-free families, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission, in conjunction with multiple departments such as Beijing Development and Reform, Public Security Traffic Management, and Ecological Environment, has conducted research. With the approval of the municipal government, 20,000 new energy passenger car quotas will be issued to eligible car-free families in 2024.
In addition to Beijing, Shenzhen City issued the "Shenzhen City Action Plan to Promote the Replacement of Old Consumer Goods for New" as early as May 27, which proposed to cancel the social security restrictions on non-Shenzhen residents applying for new energy car incremental quotas, and relax the conditions for individuals who only have one car registered in Shenzhen to apply for hybrid car incremental quotas. Previously, the "Notice on Adjusting the Application Conditions for New Energy Car Incremental Quotas" issued by Shenzhen in April 2023 had already canceled the restrictions such as the requirement to pay basic medical insurance in the city for more than 24 consecutive months.
Cities such as Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Tianjin have also taken action. On July 1, the "Guangzhou Passenger Car Index Control Management Measures" came into effect. It proposes that the allocation quota for ordinary car incremental quotas is 80,000 per cycle, which will be evenly distributed on a monthly basis. Individuals who have participated in the incremental quota lottery for more than 72 times can directly apply for ordinary car incremental quotas without occupying the allocation quota.
In the "Notice of the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau and other six departments on the release of several policy measures (for trial implementation) to benefit the people's livelihood and optimize other indicators for passenger cars" issued last year, Hangzhou proposed that eligible individuals who have not won the license plate lottery for a long time, talents, families with many children, and key enterprises can directly apply for passenger car indicators. Recently, the Hangzhou Municipal Control Office said that it actively pays attention to and studies the implementation of last year's new policy, and will optimize the control policy in a timely manner according to the implementation effect.
At the beginning of this year, Tianjin implemented measures to optimize passenger car control policies, allocating 30,000 ordinary car quotas to car-free families, and allocating 10,000 ordinary car quotas in a step-by-step lottery for applicants who have been unsuccessful in the lottery for a long time. In addition, a special quota for high-level talents was set up, stipulating that Haihe talents recognized by relevant departments of Tianjin who do not have a registered passenger car in Tianjin can apply for one quota.
The relaxation of purchase restrictions and the replacement of old cars with new ones have accelerated automobile consumption
In response to the current relaxation of purchase restrictions in various places, Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of the North China University of Technology, told a reporter from China Economic Weekly that the "relaxation" of purchase restrictions would bring about an immediate increase in car sales. "Many consumers have demand for cars but are unable to buy them due to license plate restrictions. If the purchase restrictions are relaxed, these consumers will drive car sales growth," said Zhang Xiang.
Zhang Hong, a member of the Expert Committee of the China Automobile Dealers Association, analyzed in an interview with a reporter from China Economic Weekly that the most direct impact of relaxing the purchase restrictions on new energy vehicles is to stimulate new energy vehicle consumption and meet the rigid demand of more consumers to buy cars. In addition, it will help promote the development of the new energy vehicle industry towards higher quality; it will be conducive to the innovation and application of battery, motor and electronic control technology; it will be conducive to the improvement of charging infrastructure and after-sales service, and will ultimately promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and accelerate the development of my country's automobile industry towards electrification, intelligence and networking.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Passenger Car Market Information Joint Branch of the China Automobile Dealers Association, believes that the policy of relaxing car purchase restrictions reflects the increasing efforts to promote automobile consumption and the determination to accelerate the exploration of market potential. It is expected that the relaxation of quota restrictions will become a major trend in the second half of this year.
Looking forward to the complete abolition of purchase restrictions, Zhang Hong believes that the key lies in the development of new energy vehicles. He suggested using the intelligent networking characteristics of new energy vehicles, using the support of big data, big models and other technologies to achieve vehicle-road-cloud integration, and relying on the highly intelligent collaboration of urban traffic control end to vehicle end to realize the application of intelligent transportation systems in cities and solve the problem of congestion.
In addition to encouraging the relaxation of purchase restrictions, the "Measures on Creating New Consumption Scenarios and Cultivating New Consumption Growth Points" also proposes to arrange funds to support the scrapping and renewal of eligible old cars through the linkage between the central finance and local governments; and encourage places with conditions to support car replacement and renewal.
In early April this year, the Ministry of Commerce and 14 other departments issued a notice on the "Action Plan for Promoting the Trade-in of Consumer Goods", proposing to strive to accelerate the elimination of passenger cars with National III and below emission standards by 2025, and to double the amount of scrapped cars recycled by 2027 compared with 2023; at the end of April, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance and other 7 departments issued the "Implementation Rules for Subsidies for Old Cars for New Cars", which provide a one-time fixed subsidy to individual consumers who scrap fuel passenger cars with National III and below emission standards or new energy passenger cars registered before April 30, 2018 (including that day, hereinafter the same), and purchase new energy passenger cars or fuel passenger cars with a displacement of 2.0 liters or less included in the "Catalogue of New Energy Vehicle Models for Reduction and Exemption of Vehicle Purchase Tax" of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
In July, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance issued the "Several Measures on Further Supporting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in", raising the subsidy standard for scrapped cars. Among them, for consumers who meet the trade-in standards, the subsidy standard is increased to 20,000 yuan.
Data shows that as of 9 a.m. on August 2, the number of applications for national vehicle scrapping and renewal subsidies exceeded 450,000, and the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles increased by 33.1% in the first half of the year.
Cui Dongshu said that the expansion and doubling of subsidies for scrapping and updating cars is a major boon to the auto market. The subsidy for passenger cars has doubled, and the scrapping and updating of old diesel trucks has been increased. It is estimated that several hundred billion yuan of automobile subsidy funds will be arranged accordingly, which should effectively drive a strong growth of about 2 million scrapped vehicles in the auto market this year. It will also help drive incremental renewal consumption of more than 100 billion yuan. By releasing the demand for car market updates, it will improve the severe situation of excessive price wars in the auto market, which is a very good and major benefit for both manufacturers and dealers.
(This article was published in China Economic Weekly, Issue 15, 2024)
