Beijing - mind boggling

Yes, they are cars!

Sometime in the next Five Year Plan, the population of Beijing will reach 25 million people, which is more than three times the size of London.

If you want to buy a new car, then it had better be electric. If not, then you must enter the licence plate lottery. That's right, in order to address the rising city pollution and congestion, you must enter a lottery to win the right to register your car, currently with a 1:23 chance of doing so.

Unless you buy an electric car that is.

If you drive electric then you automatically get to register your car. Neat huh?

Beijing has a target of 100,000 electric vehicles on its roads by the end of 2015. Given that in 2010 720,000 vehicles were registered and in 2011 only 240,000 licence plates will be issued, I would guess that they might just hit that target earlier. Probably as soon as Chinese car manufacturers can make 100,000 EVs.