Customers rush to buy cars in Taiyuan

Car dealers have seen an unusual increase in orders in the first days of the new year in Taiyuan city, capital of Shanxi province, due to worries that the city might introduce curbs on vehicles.

The buying spree was directly triggered by a Taiyuan Daily report on Dec 30 claiming that the city was considering imposing restrictions to control the total number of vehicles to within 11 million units.

The Municipal People's Congress standing committee's meeting was debriefed on Dec 29 on a report on the city's environment protection. The report suggested five plans to manage motor vehicle pollution: to restrain the growth of motor vehicles; to speed up the elimination of the yellow-label and older vehicles; to apply odd-even day vehicle prohibition on streets that see heavy traffic or during heavy air pollution; to prohibit transiting loaded vehicles crossing the urban areas, to move the market places and construction material markets and logistic centers located in the urban areas.

Customers these days are not only worried about the purchase restriction, but also a lightening execution like that in Shenzhen city, in Guangzhou province, according to China News report on Thursday.

Several dealers said they received more visitors to the showrooms than usual, and a BYD Auto sales person said customers believe the restriction is coming sooner or later.

Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, on Dec 29 announced the 100,000 annual cap on new car license plate with residents only permitted to acquire a new electric vehicles, or enter the lottery or auction for gasoline car plates.