If you like breathing air, you’re going to like this: According to a report by Nikkei Asia, China has announced that it plans to phase out gasoline-powered cars by the year 2035.
Details surrounding the move to eco-friendly vehicles are still relatively scarce, but according to the report, a road map for the shift to clean vehicles has been made under the guidance of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Essentially, this will be the basis for the country’s future automotive policies.
Under the road map, half of China’s total car sales in 2035 will be “new-energy” vehicles, while the other half will be hybrids. The shift is expected to happen incrementally, with 95% of these new-energy models expected to be electric vehicles.
What’s more, the road map stipulates that hybrids will account for 75% of gasoline car sales by 2030, and 100% by the year 2035—meaning by that year, gasoline engines can only be part of hybrid powertrains in new vehicles. Conventional gasoline-powered cars will no longer be produced from that point onward.
To be fair, China has already taken steps in previous years to clean up its act. Subsidies for new-energy cars were introduced back in 2009, and in 2019, the country made up half of the entire world’s new-energy car sales. Despite this, such models accounted for only 5% of new car sales in China last year.
China is hardly the first country to announce its intent to make this jump. In 2016, Norway announced plans to completely ban internal combustion vehicles by the year 2025. Other nations with plans to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles include Iceland, Sweden, Israel, and Singapore.
So, when do you think the Philippines will be able to commit to something like this? We’re still a very long way off, we’re guessing.
