Assuming that the ban actually happens, I can see a number of reasons China would do it apart from reducing CO2 emissions: - Many Chinese cities have terrible

Assuming that the ban actually happens, I can see a number of reasons China would do it apart from reducing CO2 emissions: - Many Chinese cities have terrible air quality that ICE vehicle growth would make worse. - China dominates world PV manufacturing and is pretty strong in wind equipment, but electricity storage will be critical to long term high-penetration uptake of renewables. China still lags other countries in advanced battery production. This would accelerate the development of domestic expertise and scale in battery manufacturing. - China can supply far less of its own petroleum from domestic sources than the US can. The faster it electrifies transportation, the less dependent it becomes on foreign oil. - It looks like the rest of the world wants to (eventually) electrify automobile transportation too. Chinese dreams of building globally competitive export cars could detour into more years of mastering advanced internal combustion just as every global brand is starting to develop electric models... or leapfrog straight to electric, where the global competition is less entrenched.