BEIJING -- China's traffic management authority has designed special plates for new energy vehicles to help traffic police differentiate them from standard cars.

The Traffic Management Bureau under the Ministry of Public Security said on Monday that the new plates will be green in color compared to the standard blue. They will include a Chinese character short for the provincial region where they are issued, and seven numbers and letters, compared to six on standard plates.

It is important that police can recognize new energy vehicles in order to enforce the preferential policies that some local authorities apply to greener cars to help cut emissions and ease traffic.

For example, conventional vehicles are banned from central Beijing for one day of each week, but there are no limits on electric vehicles.

The bureau issued three designs for the new plates and are consulting the public on which they prefer.

At the end of last year, China had over 332,000 registered electric vehicles and 251,000 with hybrid power sources.

The country is using subsidies and other measures to encourage drivers to turn to new energy vehicles, aiming to have five million produced and sold by 2020.