IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v37y2009i11p4720-4729.html

China's fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles: Rationale, policy process, and impacts

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver, Hongyan H.
  • Gallagher, Kelly Sims
  • Tian, Donglian
  • Zhang, Jinhua

Abstract

China issued its first Fuel Economy Standards (FES) for light-duty passenger vehicles (LDPV) in September 2004, and the first and second phases of the FES took effective in July 2005 and January 2008, respectively. The stringency of the Chinese FES ranks third globally, following the Japanese and European standards. In this paper, we first review the policy-making background, including the motivations, key players, and the process; and then explain the content and the features of the FES and why there was no compliance flexibility built into it. Next, we assess the various aspects of the standard's impact, including fuel economy improvement, technology changes, shift of market composition, and overall fuel savings. Lastly, we comment on the prospect of tightening the existing FES and summarize the complementary policies that have been adopted or may be considered by the Chinese government for further promoting efficient vehicles and reducing transport energy consumption. The Chinese experience is highly relevant for countries that are also experiencing or anticipating rapid growth in personal vehicles, those wishing to moderate an increase in oil demand, or those desirous of vehicle technology upgrades.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver, Hongyan H. & Gallagher, Kelly Sims & Tian, Donglian & Zhang, Jinhua, 2009. "China's fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles: Rationale, policy process, and impacts," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4720-4729, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:11:p:4720-4729
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(09)00442-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:aen:journl:2007v28-01-a02 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. He, Kebin & Huo, Hong & Zhang, Qiang & He, Dongquan & An, Feng & Wang, Michael & Walsh, Michael P., 2005. "Oil consumption and CO2 emissions in China's road transport: current status, future trends, and policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 1499-1507, August.
    3. Yan, Xiaoyu & Crookes, Roy J., 2009. "Reduction potentials of energy demand and GHG emissions in China's road transport sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 658-668, February.
    4. Fischer, Carolyn, 2008. "Comparing flexibility mechanisms for fuel economy standards," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 3106-3114, August.
    5. A. Greening, Lorna & Greene, David L. & Difiglio, Carmen, 2000. "Energy efficiency and consumption -- the rebound effect -- a survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(6-7), pages 389-401, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liu, Wen & Lund, Henrik & Mathiesen, Brian Vad, 2013. "Modelling the transport system in China and evaluating the current strategies towards the sustainable transport development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 347-357.
    2. Jianlei Lang & Shuiyuan Cheng & Ying Zhou & Beibei Zhao & Haiyan Wang & Shujing Zhang, 2013. "Energy and Environmental Implications of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(5), pages 1-23, May.
    3. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Dulal, Hari B., 2009. "A review of regulatory instruments to control environmental externalities from the transport sector," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4867, The World Bank.
    4. Yu, Wei & Pagani, Roberto & Huang, Lei, 2012. "CO2 emission inventories for Chinese cities in highly urbanized areas compared with European cities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 298-308.
    5. González, Rosa Marina & Marrero, Gustavo A. & Rodríguez-López, Jesús & Marrero, Ángel S., 2019. "Analyzing CO2 emissions from passenger cars in Europe: A dynamic panel data approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1271-1281.
    6. Xu, Yang-Jie & Li, Guo-Xiu & Sun, Zuo-Yu, 2016. "Development of biodiesel industry in China: Upon the terms of production and consumption," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 318-330.
    7. Zhang, Yong & Yu, Yifeng & Zou, Bai, 2011. "Analyzing public awareness and acceptance of alternative fuel vehicles in China: The case of EV," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 7015-7024.
    8. Peng, Tianduo & Ou, Xunmin & Yuan, Zhiyi & Yan, Xiaoyu & Zhang, Xiliang, 2018. "Development and application of China provincial road transport energy demand and GHG emissions analysis model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 313-328.
    9. Wang, H. & Zhou, P. & Zhou, D.Q., 2012. "An empirical study of direct rebound effect for passenger transport in urban China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 452-460.
    10. Huo, Hong & Wang, Michael & Zhang, Xiliang & He, Kebin & Gong, Huiming & Jiang, Kejun & Jin, Yuefu & Shi, Yaodong & Yu, Xin, 2012. "Projection of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by motor vehicles in China: Policy options and impacts," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 37-48.
    11. Xianchun Tan & Yuan Zeng & Baihe Gu & Yi Wang & Baoguang Xu, 2018. "Scenario Analysis of Urban Road Transportation Energy Demand and GHG Emissions in China—A Case Study for Chongqing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-32, June.
    12. Liu, Jiaguo & Li, Sujuan & Ji, Qiang, 2021. "Regional differences and driving factors analysis of carbon emission intensity from transport sector in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    13. Yu Gan & Zifeng Lu & Hao Cai & Michael Wang & Xin He & Steven Przesmitzki, 2020. "Future private car stock in China: current growth pattern and effects of car sales restriction," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 289-306, March.
    14. Wang, Y.F. & Li, K.P. & Xu, X.M. & Zhang, Y.R., 2014. "Transport energy consumption and saving in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 641-655.
    15. Ou, Xunmin & Zhang, Xiliang & Chang, Shiyan, 2010. "Scenario analysis on alternative fuel/vehicle for China's future road transport: Life-cycle energy demand and GHG emissions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 3943-3956, August.
    16. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Dulal, Hari B., 2009. "Regulatory instruments to control environmental externalities from the transport sector," European Transport \ Trasporti Europei, ISTIEE, Institute for the Study of Transport within the European Economic Integration, issue 41, pages 80-112.
    17. Yan, Xiaoyu & Crookes, Roy J., 2009. "Reduction potentials of energy demand and GHG emissions in China's road transport sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 658-668, February.
    18. Wang, Haikun & Fu, Lixin & Bi, Jun, 2011. "CO2 and pollutant emissions from passenger cars in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 3005-3011, May.
    19. He, Ling-Yun & Chen, Yu, 2013. "Thou shalt drive electric and hybrid vehicles: Scenario analysis on energy saving and emission mitigation for road transportation sector in China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 30-40.
    20. Liu, Yang & Wang, Yu & Huo, Hong, 2013. "Temporal and spatial variations in on-road energy use and CO2 emissions in China, 1978–2008," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 544-550.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:11:p:4720-4729. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.