The Chinese government is revising a credit-score program for automakers currently in place that some complain too favorable to new-energy vehicles (NEVs) and has led to an increase in the actual fuel consumption of traditional vehicles.

The new draft policy issued Tuesday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology aims to encourage the development of new-energy vehicles and at the same time to guide automakers not to ignore the energy-saving features of traditional-fuel vehicles.

Under current rules implemented in April 2018, car companies are measured against a credit-score program tied to their production proportion of NEVs, including electric cars and plug-in hybrids. They must make enough new-energy cars to obtain the credits.

The credit-score program originally aimed to encourage automakers to produce new-energy cars, but the way the scores are calculated is too skewed toward NEV makers and has encouraged carmakers to ignore the energy-saving features of traditional-fuel vehicles.

The revised policy will ease score requirements on those companies that make low-fuel-consumption vehicles.

The new policy will provide opportunities for traditional automakers to develop energy-saving technologies including hybrid vehicles, said Kang Liping, a senior manager at the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation, a Beijing-based think tank.