New Chinese emission standards come with huge price tag

Beijing will become the first city in China to ban registration of petrol vehicles that fall below the new National V emission standard.
China’s State Council said the new requirement would be extended to the whole country by 2017.
China’s National V standard was lifted from Europe’s Euro V emission standards, which requires the fuel sulfur content to be no more than 10 parts per million (ppm), as compared to 50 ppm for the National IV standard.
The new emission standards take effect on March 1, 2013.
While the technology required for the upgrade posed few challenges to foreign carmakers, the extra costs involved to meet this new more stringent standard, which is estimated at 2,000 yuan (US$319) per car, could pose a bigger burden for local carmakers.
According to a list of car models compliant with the BJ V emission standard from Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau, 33% are imported models and 40% are locally made foreign models. Only 27% are local models.
Geely Automobile’s Executive Director Lawrence Ang said the mainland carmaker was much more prepared for the upgrade this time than when the Pearl River Delta and major cities like Beijing and Shanghai raised their emission standards to National IV from National III.
“Now most of our cars are priced in the area of 100,000 yuan (US$15,900). That makes the additional costs of 2,000 yuan (US$319) per car much less significant than the last upgrade when most of our cars were priced at around 30,000 yuan (US$4,788),” he said. (February 25, 2013)