Year of Horsepower: Car industry shifts gears

Local policy to curb autos on road

After the Tianjin government announced it would limit the sale of new cars on Dec 15, 2013, people rushed to the second-hand auto market to buy and register for licenses in the evening of the day. [Provided to China Daily]

Tianjin announced an auction and lottery system to distribute a limited number of car licenses on Dec 15, making it the sixth Chinese city to use such measures to ease traffic and combat air pollution.

Municipalities Beijing and Shanghai are among the cities with similar restrictions. Others include Guiyang, Guizhou province, as well as Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and Shijiazhuang, Hebei province.

According to the Tianjin government, it will offer 100,000 license plates each year since 2014. Of them, 40,000 are available for auction and the rest are provided free of charge through the lottery system. There were 2.15 million vehicles in Tianjin as of April 2013.

A rule barring cars from the roads on certain days based on the last digit of their license plates will take effect in March in the city.

Tianjin and Shijiazhuang are two of the eight cities that the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers predicted in early July would soon introduce car restrictions.

Another six are -Shenzhen, Guangdong province; Hangzhou, Zhejiang province; Chongqing; Qingdao, Shandong province; Chengdu, Sichuan province, and Wuhan, Hubei province.

An online poll launched by news portal ifeng.com after the Tianjin government released its policy shows that 48 percent of more than 11,000 respondents believe Shenzhen will become the next city to limit the number of car purchases.