The Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China has issued a notice on ways to promote financial subsidies for new electric vehicles.

The ministry said it had issued the order to support the new electric vehicle industry. It has highlighted a few areas of the subsidy policy for the new EVs that must be addressed.

It said that the notice would be implemented starting April 23, 2020, and the transition period will be from April 23, 2020, to July 2020. The topics were related to the extension of the duration and improving the accessibility of subsidies, optimization of technical indicators in the industry, and improving the capital settlement system.

The ministry also noted that the current subsidies for fuel cell-based vehicles must also be adjusted and that the industry must strive to establish a hydrogen energy and fuel vehicle industry chain in about four years.

It added that the local departments for new EV promotion should strengthen fund supervision, management, and ensure fund safety. In conclusion, the ministry stated that the supporting policies must be improved and that steps must be taken to create a conducive environment for the growth of the industry.

This notice followed an earlier notice issued on April 16, 2020, by the Chinese ministry of finance and the ministry of industry and information technology, which contained policy announcements regarding the exemption of vehicle purchase tax on new EVs.

It stated that new EVs purchased between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2022, would be exempted from vehicle purchase tax. This also covered plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.

New energy vehicles exempted from vehicle purchase tax will be managed through the “Catalog of New Energy vehicle Models Exempted from Vehicle Purchase Tax,” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration of Taxation.

The announcement stated that the current policy of exempting vehicle purchase tax on new EVs that have been included in the catalog before December 31, 2020, would remain in effect.

Recently, Mercom reported that China-based BYD Company Ltd (BYD) and Toyota Motor Corporation have announced that the operation of their new company will be launched in 2020. The name of the new company will be called BYD Toyota EV Technology Co. Ltd (BTET). The company will be involved in the design and development of battery-run electric vehicles and their platforms and related parts. The equity participation of both companies is 50% each.

Earlier, Fourth Partner Energy, a distributed solar energy management company, announced that it has partnered with Lithium Urban Technologies, a commercial electric vehicle (EV) fleet provider, to set up solar-powered EV charging infrastructure across the country under a joint venture (JV) Shuchi Anant Virya (SAV).

In February 2020, Toyota Motor and Panasonic Corporation joined hands to establish a joint venture specializing in automotive prismatic batteries for electric vehicles. The joint venture will be called Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, Inc.

Meanwhile, last month, Mercom reported that a team of researchers led by Hun-Gi Jung at the Center for Energy Storage Research at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has claimed to have come up with silicon anode materials that can increase the battery capacity by four times as compared to the traditional graphite anode materials.