On May 9, the Chinese regulatory body under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that every car produced, imported, or sold since July 1 must comply with the 6b emission standard.
Previously rumors appeared that MIIT would postpone the deadline until December to help overstocked ICE dealers. Many sellers panicked over their inventory and joined the price war offering significant cuts for the ICE vehicles in stock because, after July 1, they would become unsellable. 6b is a strict Chinese emission norm, an analogy to EURO7 in the EU.
The MIIT document says that some light-duty vehicles which undergo pollution monitoring tests (such as the RDE test) with result ‘monitoring only’ will be given a transition period of six months and can be sold until December 31.
The emission standard is one of the ingredients of the perfect storm in the Chinese auto market, which is driving the vehicle prices down, together with Tesla price-cuts from January which many EV makers followed. Some ICE cars from BMW or Volkswagen got discounted up to 90,000 yuan (13,000 USD).
The article is being updated.
Keyword: MIIT confirms that the 6b emission standard will take effect on July 1 in China