Chinese regulators are penalizing five electric-vehicle manufacturers that “cheated” on a subsidy program to the tune of 489.4 million yuan ($73.4 million) by making false claims about the number of vehicles they made —sometimes collecting money before any were made at all.
Suzhou GEMSEA Coach Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the nation’s eighth-largest electric-minibus maker, forged production and sales records for more than 1,100 electric buses in 2015 to receive subsidies worth 260 million yuan, a person close to the Finance Ministry said.
The ministry said it will revoke the production license of the Jiangsu province company and reclaim all the subsidies that the company received last year.
Another four companies — Higer Bus Co. Ltd. in Suzhou, Shenzhen Wuzhoulong Motors Group, Qirui Wanda Coach Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and Henan Shaolin Bus Co. Ltd. — applied for vehicle licenses, a requirement for obtaining subsidies, and obtained government funds even before the vehicles rolled off the production line, the source said.
The regulators are seeking to recover the unearned subsides from the four companies plus fines of an additional 50 percent of the subsidies.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Development and Reform Commission launched a joint inspection in January, which targeted 90 automakers in 25 provinces and cities that got new-energy car-production subsidies from 2013 to 2015. -CaixinOnline