China's electric car production up in November

BEIJING -- Chinese carmakers produced 10 times as many new energy vehicles last month as they did in November 2013, thanks to intense government-led promotion, according to new data.

They made a total of 9,728 green vehicles last month, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said Wednesday in a statement.

For the first 11 months of the year, total production jumped fivefold to more than 56,700 units. New energy vehicles include pure electric cars and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

In the first 11 months, output of pure electric passenger cars soared nearly 700 percent from a year earlier to about 25,800 units, and that for plug-in hybrid passenger cars climbed about 25 times to 13,600 units.

Output of pure electric and plug-in hybrid commercial vehicles went up by 188 percent and 245 percent year on year, respectively, the statement said.

Intense government-led promotion has introduced more and more new energy vehicles to China's roads as the country aims to save energy and combat pollution.

A raft of measures has been put into place, including tax exemptions, subsidies for car purchases, and requirements for government bodies to buy green cars.

Last month, China's Ministry of Finance announced new incentives to encourage the construction of charging facilities for new energy vehicles in cities.

In July 2014, the government announced that new energy cars will be exempted from a 10-percent purchase tax from Sept 1, 2014 to the end of 2017.

However, new energy cars still account for only a tiny proportion of China's total auto output.

In the first 10 months, the country's automotive industry produced a total of 19.27 million vehicles, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.