Hallelujah - blue sky afternoon and hybrid taxis
Today for the first time i saw a hybrid taxi in Beijing, a Chery A5, and i took the picture below. It seems there have been 50 such hybrid taxis in Beijing since 21 June; that is great news. 40 BSG models which increase fuel efficiency by 10-15% and 10 ISG models, with a 25-30% improvement. Let’s hope this pilot project goes well and we’ll see more of these hybrids soon.
After yesterday’s heavy smog, we saw a gradual improvement over the morning, helped by a good breeze, although from the South, which cleared up the sky, with a nice sunset as the result. BBC reported a PM10 of 104 micrograms/m3 at noon (that is an API of 77; an official blue sky day). The official API for the preceding 24hr was 88, which seems very low for the ‘haze’ we saw yesterday. The spectacular drop in PM10 today is well illustrated by the screenshot below, taken from the website of the Flemish Institute for Technology, one of the partners of the AMFIC project mentioned below. Unfortunately the site is in Dutch only. According to their model, PM10 will go from 130 to 75 tomorrow, and on Thursdayit will be around 100 micrograms/m3. More on this model later.
The current weather forecast has a 40% chance for rain on Thursday 7 Aug, hopefully it will rain to bring the PM10 further down.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Hoorayyyyyy!!!!!
Good luck, Beijing.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Looks like the hybrid taxi needs to inflate its tires. That can’t be good for gas mileage!