Alarmed by high world oil prices and sporadic shortages of gasoline and diesel fuel in big cities this summer, China's leaders are drafting plans to impose steep taxes on cars and sport utility vehicles with gas-guzzling engines.
The taxes would add as much as 27 percent to the price of vehicles with big engines, notably sports cars and SUVs, auto-industry officials and people advising the government on the plan said. At the same time, taxes may be cut slightly for models with the smallest, most efficient engines, though the details of these cuts are still under discussion, they said.
The taxes follow China's adoption on July 1 of fuel economy standards that are more stringent than those in force in the US. The Bush administration announced plans on Tuesday to phase in tougher fuel economy rules for light-duty trucks in the 2008-'11 model years, but the Chinese have already imposed stiffer standards to take effect in 2008-'9.
Since the 1970s, the US has had a so-called gas-guzzler tax up to US$7,700 on cars that get very low gas mileage. The tax falls mainly on sports cars with huge engines, like Ferraris, because SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans are exempt from the tax -- an exception that has contributed to a shift away from cars and toward these trucklike vehicles in the US market.
The planned taxes in China are part of a much broader effort to improve the nation's energy security. Efforts by state-controlled oil companies to buy foreign businesses have drawn the most attention, particularly CNOOC's (中國海洋石油) unsuccessful US$18.5-billion bid this summer for Unocal.
But China has also been focusing on energy efficiency. Zhang Guobao (
The State Council is in the final stages of drafting the new automobile taxes, a complex process involving many government agencies, said He Dongquan (
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
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