China pulling plug on EV gold rush

Buoyed by generous subsidies and meteoric sales, more than 200 companies have announced their intention to make and sell new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China.  China set the ambitious goal of reaching 7m annual NEV sales by 2025. Last year, it sold 507,000. But this gold rush may be over before its starts for some. China is weeding out smaller NEV companies, some of which have sucked up government subsidies without producing commercially viable vehicles. The government hopes this will leave a handful of leaders that could one day compete with the likes of Tesla, according to the Financial Times. China slashed subsidies on car sales by 20% in January and will phase them out completely by 2020. The Ministry of Industry is launching a lengthy certification process at the same time, which requires that NEV production facilities have “mastered” the technology they are manufacturing.