Auto manufacturers urged to reduce emissions

Staff members of the environmental protection bureau in Fengtai district, Beijing, examine emissions through remote sensing instruments. (Photo: Ding Bangxue/For China Daily)

Goal set for nation to meet new standards by 2018

Chinese auto manufacturers are being urged to reduce their vehicles' emissions to meet the country's new standards.

Last week, Guangdong province upgraded its emission standards for light vehicles to National V, which requires sulfur content in fuel to be no more than 10 parts per million, one-fifth of the National IV's 50 ppm.

The new standard applies to the provincial capital Guangzhou and eight other cities in the province. The move makes Guangdong the third place to apply the top emission standard in the country, after Beijing and Shanghai.

Huang Qingfeng, senior engineer at the Vehicle Emission Control Center of Guangzhou, said the emission standard upgrade required both the fuels and the vehicles' exhausts to meet the standards.

"The vehicle exhaust standard in Guangzhou came after the fuel upgrades. Fuel in Guangzhou has already been in line with the National V standard."

Both Beijing and Shanghai municipalities required that vehicles met the standards first then fuels. Beijing was the first city to apply the National V standard in September 2013, followed by Shanghai in April 2014.

Guangdong province started applying the National IV standard in August 2013. From March 1, all nine Pearl River Delta cities no longer registered number plates for National IV standard light vehicles and will cease to register National IV heavy-duty vehicles from July.

Last year Beijing authorities said that car exhausts accounted for 31.1 percent of PM2.5, airborne particles measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter, because of the increasing number of cars on the road.

Emissions by heavy-duty vehicles, including trucks and buses, contain a large amount of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, which are major sources of urban air pollution.

Yao Jie, vice-secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, told China Daily that Chinese auto manufacturers needed to invest more capital into research and development, reduce vehicles' fuel consumption and pollutant emissions and prepare for market competition to meet the rising emissions standards.

"China's auto manufacturers need to be more innovative to meet the government's rising standards on emissions," Yao said.

Liu Jun, intake and exhaust system section manager at Pan-Asia Technical Automotive Center Co, said high costs would be incurred each time an automotive company updated equipment for a new standard.

"A module would be added for upgrading and it costs several hundred yuan for each car. When a car model has 10,000-unit sales, the upgrade cost would be millions of yuan," he said.

Liu said: "A carmaker usually takes four or five years to get well prepared for a new emission standard. Even when working at a fast pace, it needs at least three years."