All city buses to go electric in Guangzhou by 2020

EditorWang Lei

All buses in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou will be powered by electricity by 2020, according to a work plan on the development of new energy vehicles released by the municipal development and reform commission.

The move is part of efforts by Chinese cities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fight air pollution.

Eighteen charging points are put into service at a parking zone in the center of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province on August 9, 2016. /VCG Photo

Guangzhou, currently seeking public opinion on the plan, aims to replace all petrol and diesel powered buses with electric ones by 2020, when the city will have around 30,000 new energy public vehicles including taxis, shared cars and government vehicles.

From 2017, every newly added or replaced bus in Guangzhou will be an electric vehicle, the plan says.

Meanwhile, the capital of Guangdong province plans to lower the price of electric vehicles, reduce maintenance costs and install more charging stations in order to encourage more consumers to buy electric vehicles. More than 120,000 private electric cars are expected to be on Guangzhou's roads by 2020, according to the document.

The megacity, with a population of over 14 million, will have a total of 100,000 charging points by 2020. The number of parking spaces with electric car chargers will be no less than 30 percent of the total parking bays in new office buildings, shopping malls and restaurants.

Electric vehicles for a car-sharing service in Beijing. /VCG Photo

Emissions by motor vehicles are one of the major pollutants in Chinese cities, many of which have suffered from frequent smog episodes in recent years. As China pledges to peak its carbon emissions by 2030, authorities are promoting the development of new energy vehicles nationwide.

In 2016, China had a total of 1.09 million new energy vehicles, a sharp increase of 86.90 percent from the previous year, statistics from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed.

China is also the fastest growing electric vehicle market in the world. Among the approximately 774,000 electric vehicles sold worldwide last year, China contributed 53 percent.