Government promotes new vehicles but customers hesitate

[Photo: from VCG]

There was no immediate rush after the Ministry of Finance announced last week that it would extend a tax rebate on purchases of new-energy vehicles (NEVs) until the end of 2020.

Consumers in Beijing seemed happy enough about the idea of tax breaks, but less optimistic about their chances of benefiting from them.

"To get a tax rebate, I would have to purchase an NEV, right?" a 25-year-old Beijing resident told the Global Times, "and in Beijing to buy an NEV, I would have to get a license plate."

"I'm told that I would have to wait until 2019 to get a license plate so I don't know what to say. Sounds like a great gift but it's not exactly easy cash."

At first he had hesitated over "all the hassles of having an NEV" such as finding a place to charge, but after failing three years in a row at the city lottery for a traditional license plate, he found the advantages of NEV became clearer: no lottery.

But that didn't work either.

"Apparently, I'm too late for a license plate even for an NEV because the line became so long," said the wannabe eco-driver. He should have bought one a year earlier, he muttered.

[The audio clip is from Studio+, produced by CRI] 

(News source: Global Times)