state council announces new diesel fuel quality standards

Yesterday, China's State Council announced the "Petrochemical Industry Restructuring and Revitalization Plan" (Chinese only) which mandates nationwide China III quality gasoline fuel by 2009 and nationwide China III diesel fuel by 2010 (2009年车用汽油全部达到国Ⅲ标准，2010年车用柴油全部达到国Ⅲ标准). The announcement also says that any fuels not meeting these standards may not be sold into the marketplace (严格执行油品质量标准，严禁达不到国家规定标准的油品进入市场) after the implementation dates.

As far as I can tell, for gasoline fuels, this announcement merely confirms existing standards and implementation dates. However, for diesel fuel, this is a big deal, due to implications on the timeline for improving diesel fuel quality.

The specific issue I'm referencing here is fuel sulfur content. Lowering fuel sulfur content is critical for reducing vehicle emissions and allowing implementation of advanced vehicle emission control technologies. (Sorry I don't have time to write more on this right now; some background in this post.)

The China III fuel quality targets for sulfur content are 150ppm for gasoline and 350ppm for diesel. Although the timeline for reducing gasoline sulfur content to 150ppm has been fixed for some time (by GB17930-2006), there was, until now, no confirmation of the timeline for reducing nationwide diesel sulfur content to 350ppm. As such, this represents a concrete and important step towards the desulfurization of China's motor fuel.

More analysis / commentary to come, and a link to the final standard when it is formally released (as opposed to just being announced by the State Council). For those of you who want to keep track at home, I've recently discovered that you can search planned and upcoming standards on SAC's home page, by clicking on the 国家标准计划查询 link. In this case, searching for 车用柴油 will show you standard plan 20075424-T-469, which is in the 报批阶段, or final draft for approval, stage.

Lastly, here's a table, as far as I understand the current situation, showing nationwide fuel sulfur content in China:

subsidies for energy-saving and new energy vehicles

Earlier this year, China announced new subsidies for energy-saving and new energy vehicles, including hybrids, EVs, and fuel cell vehicles. The announcement was covered widely in the media / blogosphere, for example Xinhua, Reuters, and China Car Times. I didn't get a chance to post about this last month; although I'm late now, I still think it's worth providing some commentary and more information.

First of all, since I like to reference original sources whenever possible, I was able to find relevant info posted both on the MOF website as well as MOST's. The MOF notice is only a brief summary, but the MOST page seems to be the complete announcement.

The lead of the Reuters story is an accurate and concise summary of the program:

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's central government will subsidize purchases of clean-energy vehicles for public fleets in 13 cities to help the automobile industry develop green technology, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The trial scheme will promote the use of electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles by public transport operators, taxi firms and postal and sanitary services in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai...

A key point here is that the subsidies are for public fleets only. As far as I can tell, Chinese consumers are not eligible to receive these subsidies, although both the Xinhua and China Car Times stories describe them as such. Unless I am misreading the MOST announcement or there is another subsidy program that I am not aware of?

In any case, some technical details of the program are as follows:

- For small passenger cars (乘用车) and light-duty commercial vehicles (轻型商务车), the subsidies start for new energy vehicles which have at least a 5% fuel economy improvement as compared with traditional vehicles.
- For buses (客车), the subsides start at 10% improvement.
- The actual amounts of the subsidies (per vehicle) are given in Appendix Tables 1 and 2, which I have translated here:



One huge question I still don't know the answer to: how much is the total program worth? (No total is given in the MOST document.) The Xinhua story includes this paragraph:

China is keen to encourage the use and manufacture of new energy vehicles as its fast growing vehicle population is putting high pressure on environment protection and energy-saving targets. The central government pledged to provide 10 billion yuan (1.46 billion U.S. dollars) in the next three years to auto makers to help upgrade their technology and develop alternative energy vehicles.

But this is confusing - is this 10 billion RMB for this program? Or another program (I'm thinking the 863 program)? More details as I learn them.

list of chinese energy and environmental standards for vehicles

This post features codes and links to original Chinese energy and environmental standards for vehicles. I will update and add to this periodically.

It may not be the most exciting post in the world, but for those of us who occasionally need to reference these, I hope it will be a useful repository. Please feel free to make suggestions for additions.

For more general Chinese energy and environmental laws (in English!), check the list on the right side of CELB's home page: http://www.chinaenvironmentallaw.com/


China National Vehicle Pollutant Emission Standards
Light-duty gasoline and diesel vehicles
China 1: GB18352.1-2001
China 2: GB18352.2-2001
China 3/4: GB18352.3-2005
Idling emissions: GB18285-2005
Exhaust smoke: GB3847-2005 (diesel only)

Heavy-duty gasoline vehicles
China 1/2: GB14762-2002
China 3/4: GB14762-2008
Crankcase emissions: GB11340-2005
Evaporative emissions: GB14763-2005
Idling emissions: GB18285-2005
Emissions control durability: GB20890-2007 (includes diesel)

Heavy-duty diesel vehicles
China 1/2: GB17691-2001
China 3/4/5: GB17691-2005
Exhaust smoke: GB3847-2005

Motorcycles and Mopeds
China 1/2 (MC): GB14622-2002
China 3 (MC): GB14622-2007
China 1/2 (mopeds): GB18176-2002
China 3 (mopeds): GB18176-2007
Evaporative emissions (both): GB20998-2007
Idling emissions (both): GB14621-2002
Exhaust smoke (both): GB19758-2005

Three-wheeled and low-speed vehicles
China 1/2: GB19756-2005
Smoke: GB18322-2002

China National Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards
Passenger Cars
GB19578-2004

Passenger Car Labeling
GB22757-2008

Light-duty commercial vehicles
GB20977-2007

Three-wheeled and low-speed vehicles
GB21377-2008
GB21378-2008


Vehicle Classification
GB/T15089-2001
PSB Classification

China National Ambient Air Quality Standards
GB3095-1996, later revised in 2000


China National Fuel Standards
Gasoline
GB17930-1999
GB17930-2004
GB17930-2006

Diesel
GB252-2000
GB/T19147-2003


China Vehicle Taxes
Manufacturing excise tax
Purchasing tax


Beijing-Specific Standards
Advance implementation of national tailpipe emission standards
China 3
China 4

Gasoline fuel quality
DB11/238-2004
DB11/238-2007

Diesel fuel quality
DB11/239-2004
DB11/239-2007

Shanghai-Specific Standards
Advance implementation of national tailpipe emission standards
China 4


Sources:
1) MEP standards may be looked up in the standards search portion of their datacenter.

2) All national standards, including non-MEP standards, may may be found through search feature of the Standardization Administration of China. Planned standards or standards in development may be searched here.

3) Beijing-specific standards are listed on the BJ EPB website; vehicle-specific announcements are archived in the vehicle management section.

4) Shanghai-specific standards are listed on the SH EPB website; vehicle-specific announcements are archived in the vehicle emission control section.

new vehicle restriction policy in beijing

I know, I'm a little late to the party on writing about this, so apologies for that.

As of yesterday, a new policy is in effect in Beijing to keep 800,000 cars off the roads every day. Though not nearly as far-reaching as the odd/even car ban implemented during the Olympics, the basic concept is the same: forbid certain cars from driving inside Beijing's fifth ring road depending on the last digit of their license plates. According to this policy, vehicles whose license plate numbers end in 1 and 6 may not drive on Mondays, 2 and 7 on Tuesdays, 3 and 8 on Wednesdays, 4 and 9 on Thursdays, and 5 and 0 on Fridays (though supposedly the prohibited driving days will change each month). There are no restrictions on the weekends. Additionally, the government has supposedly eliminated 30% of government cars, though the details on how are a bit hazy.

I'm curious to see what the results of this policy will be, both from a pollution perspective and a congestion perspective. My initial reaction on the former is that it won't have a huge effect, largely because cars are not the largest source of pollution in Beijing anyway. I wonder, then, if the ban is somewhat symbolic, a response to the loud public calls for the government to do something to signify a clear commitment not to let the pollution return to pre-Olympic levels.

Or maybe we are just seeing one step in a broad, coordinated series of policies designed to ween car-addicted Beijingers back to transit, bikes, and walking...

More info:
http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2008/10/13/New-Traffic-Measures-Fines-Extended-Subway-Hours-and-More-Buses
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/beijing-to-ban-cars.php