Shenzhen to further expand use of green vehicles

SHENZHEN - Shenzhen is planning to have 2,000 more new-energy public vehicles on the road in 2012, according to the southern city's mayor.

Mayor Xu Qin told a municipal people's conference on Sunday that the city government will usher in 1,500 new-energy buses and 500 electric taxies in 2012, bringing the total number of new-energy vehicles in the city to more than 5,000.

Shenzhen in Guangdong province was chosen as one of 25 pilot cities in China for the utilization of new-energy vehicles.

New-energy vehicle buyers in five of these cities, namely Shanghai, Changchun, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Hefei, will receive subsidies as high as 120,000 yuan ($18,977) from both the central and local governments.

By the end of 2011, Shenzhen already had 3,035 new-energy vehicles on the road, leading the other pilot cities, Xu told the conference.

Xu said this year Shenzhen will pump 1.6 billion yuan for energy saving in various fields, including the new-energy vehicle program. The funds input will be 128 percent more than the 2011 level.

Xu however did not elaborate on how much the new-energy vehicle program will cost.

China's new energy vehicle plan aims to have more than 500,000 electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles on the road by 2015 and 5 million by 2020.