China’s vehicle population expected to reach more than 500 million by 2030

China’s vehicle population is expected to continue to rise rapidly over the next two decades, reaching 410-530 million units by 2030, according to Tsinghua University’s B. Lin, Y. Wu, Z. Yang and J. Hao of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering. Oil consumption will reach a high of 0.67-1.19 billion tons per year, unless China makes a significant shift away from conventional vehicles. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s apparent oil consumption reached 10.813 million tons in 2010, an increase of 13.1% over the same period a year ago. In addition, CO 2 emissions will reach a high of 2.11-3.76 billion ton. However, should China succeed in convincing consumers to switch to hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, oil consumption could potentially be reduced by 10%  or 88 million tons by 2030. The increased use of biofuels, including bioethanol and biodiesel could replace 23 million tons up to 56 million tons of gasoline and diesel fuel by 2030. (May 31, 2011)