chinas car sales have been in decline for more than a year is chinas 14month car crash at an endafter more than a year of declining sales the countrys auto industry has relief in sight beijings ruling state council told city governments to loosen or cancel restrictions on new car sales designed to limit congestion as part of a package of measures announced tuesday to get sputtering economic growth back on trackthe news put some octane in the tank of mainland automakers shares in guangzhou automobile group co and saic motor corp surged on the msci china automobiles index only byd co and baic motor corp failed to gain ground tuesday both have invested heavily in electric vehicles favored by existing rules so may lose out from a policy change advt foot to the pedalshares of major chinese carmakers surged tuesday on the state councils stimulus plantheres just one problem with the euphoria ultimately local governments will choose what to do and their reasons for rationing private vehicle use havent changedas weve written the basic justification for chinas restrictions on car use are a matter of capacity the country just doesnt have sufficient road space to accommodate car ownership on the scale of the us japan and western europethats especially the case when you consider that the tier one cities of beijing tianjin shanghai guangzhou and shenzhen are already more densely populated than tokyo and far more so than cities in the us and europe theyre also set to add millions of internal migrants over the coming decadethe restrictions limiting sales to those whove received ownership licenses under a quota system and banning driving on alternate days are already widespread even guiyang the relatively sleepy capital of dirtpoor guizhou province operates a buyers quota the state councils urging is having some effect guangzhou and shenzhen have increased their quotas in recent months according to caixin global but the same is unlikely to happen in beijing because congestion is too bad caixin reported citing a source close to the city governmentthat gets to the heart of the problem chinas cities arent controlling car use for the sake of it but because theyre trying their best to deal with profound problems of congestion and pollution as populations and incomes rise advt going undergroundchina accounted for more than half of the urban rail network built in 2018they also have to look after their investments chinese cities built 653 kilometers 406 miles of new metro networks and 94 kilometers of new light rail in 2018 alone equivalent to about twice the length of the new york subwayin total 35 cities had a total of 5761 kilometers of track between them at the end of last year enough to stretch from beijing to moscow paying back all that spending will depend on keeping up ridership so theres no strong incentive for city governments to encourage travelers to switch to the roadsindeed looking at the rest of the state councils announcement you could be