The country's vice minister of industry said it had started "relevant research" but that it had not yet decided when the ban would come into force.
"Those measures will certainly bring profound changes for our car industry's development," Xin Guobin told Xinhua, China's official news agency
China made 28 million cars last year, almost a third of the global total.
Both the UK and France have already announced plans to ban new diesel and petrol vehicles by 2040, as part of efforts to reduce pollution and carbon emissions.
