Report quantifies pollution of China's 245.77m vehicles

BEIJING - Vehicles across China emitted over 45 million tonnes of pollutants in 2014, a dip of 0.5 percent from a year earlier, according to an annual report on vehicle pollution made public by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) on Tuesday.

According to the report, the number of registered vehicles, including cars, trucks, and motorcycles, across the country reached 245.77 million, 33 times that in 1980.

Along with the swelling number of vehicles, pollution in cities became dominated by both smoke from coal burning and vehicle exhaust, the report said.

Out of the 45 million tonnes of pollutants, vehicles discharged 6.27 million tonnes of nitrogen oxide (NOx), 574,000 tonnes of particulate matter (PM), 4.28 million tonnes of hydrocarbon (HC) and 34.33 million tonnes of carbon monoxide (CO), according to the report.

Diesel vehicles contributed nearly 70 percent of the total NOx emissions and over 90 percent of PM, while gasoline vehicles contributed over 70 percent of total CO and HC emissions.