(Source: CNN)

You thought you had a bad time on the road? Wait till you see this one and start thanking all the gods that are out there.  Here are some snippets about this epic, mother of all traffic jams that ever happened on Earth.

The gridlock, which started August 14, involves thousands of trucks between the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Chinese capital of Beijing.

The back-up stretches over 62 miles on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway. What’s worse, officials are saying that the jam could continue for up to a month (Sept. 13, the projected completion project for some of the projects causing this delay).

Reason cited: “Insufficient traffic capacity on the National Expressway 110 caused by maintenance construction since August 19 is the major cause of the congestion,” a Beijing Traffic Management Bureau spokesman told the Beijing-based Global Times.

Other undesired outcomes borne from this mess: Bored drivers playing cards to pass time, and enterprising local vendors doling out instant noodles for as much as 4-times the actual cost.

If this is not interesting enough, China continues to add 10-million vehicles to its already exploding traffic on the roads.  It will be interesting to see how the Chinese manage their economic wealth while battling the traffic mess around their mega cities.

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(Source: Going Global & BMW Motorrad Blog via AutoblogGreen)

Two enterprising Swiss citizens are riding home along the Silk Route from Beijing to Istanbul, to generate awareness of climate change, promote sustainable motor travel and raise funds to benefit SCCF, a new international foundation focused on finding solutions to combat global warming.

Using BMW F 650 GS bikes, Mark Dembitz and Clarisse Von Wunschheim will journey across eight countries in 80 days, covering almost 17,000 kilometres. Their route will see them leave Beijing on 4 May and journey back to Europe via Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, before ending in Istanbul, Turkey on 25 July.

With a career in carbon finance and a keen interest in the environment, Mark is planning to make their ‘Going Global’ journey carbon-neutral, as well as use the opportunity to show others in cities and towns along the route how to help fight climate change.

“We will be keeping an accurate log of daily time and distance travelled as well as fuel usage, and the quantity and quality of petrol,” he said. “Based on this data, we will be able to approximate the quantity of carbon dioxide we emit along the ride. We will then secure credits (one credit is equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide) to offset our carbon emissions.

Along the way, the duo will stop at schools and universities to “teach children and students about global warming, motivating them to join us in being aware of their impact on the environment and in making small changes to their lives that will contribute towards a better and cleaner world for everyone.” 

(Source: New York Times)

China wants to raise its annual production capacity to 500,000 hybrid or all-electric cars and buses by the end of 2011, from 2,100 last year, government officials and Chinese auto executives said. By comparison, CSM Worldwide, a consulting firm that does forecasts for automakers, predicts that Japan and South Korea together will be producing 1.1 million hybrid or all-electric light vehicles by then and North America will be making 267,000.

TIANJIN, China — Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

Premier Wen Jiabao highlighted the importance of electric cars two years ago with his unlikely choice to become minister of science and technology: Wan Gang, a Shanghai-born former Audi auto engineer in Germany who later became the chief scientist for the Chinese government’s research panel on electric vehicles.

Beyond manufacturing, taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities are being offered subsidies of up to $8,800 for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle they purchase. The state electricity grid has been ordered to set up electric car charging stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.