Image from earthfirst.com

Xinhua reports on a proposal to “lift restrictions on the issuance of new license plates for buyers of new-energy vehicles”:

According to a statement jointly issued on Friday by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and National Development and Reform Commission, new-energy cars will be exempt from the current license plate and traffic restrictions in some major cities.

Under a pilot scheme, 25 Chinese cities — including Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian and Guangzhou — have been urged to encourage the purchase and use of environmentally friendly vehicles.

The pilot cities are to map out infrastructure projects to set up electric charging posts in parking lots.

Such a move is certainly be a step in the right direction for Beijing, but considering how serious the air pollution problem has become, it’s hard to imagine how long it would take for this to have any discernible impact on the environment – particularly on a day like today.

Hybrid cars have experienced dismal sales (last year only one Prius was sold in China) – primarily due to their higher price tags and low cost efficiency. The sheer number of new cars hitting the roads on a daily basis (over 5,000 new cars a day as of late 2010) also keeps adding fuel to the fire. Moreover, the enforcement and monitoring of vehicle emissions in Beijing (as I can personally attest) is notoriously lax.

Add to this the fact that many domestic car makers are actually partly or entirely owned by municipal or provincial governments (meaning any restrictions puts a pinch on their coffers), and you have the makings of a classic conundrum.

The US is also struggling with convincing domestic consumers to buy new energy cars and there is even some controversy over whether or not the greenhouse gases emitted required to charge up new energy vehicles would ultimately offset any reduction in vehicle emissions. Until Beijingers get over their obsession with the automobile-as-a-status-symbol and automakers actually manage to come out with a cost-effective new energy car, keep holding your breath.

On a related footnote, some more depressing news: According to this article, many of China’s pollution-spewing power plants are ‘too poor to upgrade’ their facilities to meet government standards.

More on hybrid cars here.