Promoting new energy compliant cars was first brought under a scheme at the national level in 2009 after a document raised the requirement that China¡¯s automobile industry should be able to produce 500,000 electric cars by 2011.

Later in 2012, China further announced that 500,000 electric cars or hybrid electric vehicles should be sold by 2015, and 5 million by 2020. Despite the grand vision, there are only over 40,000 clean energy cars currently in the market, most of which are being used for public transport.

Take Shenzhen for example, 49 percent of the city¡¯s clean energy vehicles are buses. In September 2013, the Chinese government released its latest round of subsidies for new energy vehicle buying, with cash refund ranging from 35,000 to 200,000 yuan per car.