While the move by China’s capital to ease traffic congestion by radically limiting new vehicle registrations is expected to impact car sales, especially those of affordable low-end cars from indigenous Chinese brands like BYD and Geely, analysts have said premium brand cars should escape any substantial sales hit.

Still, over the weekend, Jaguar Land Rover China President Bob Grace struck a relatively cautious tone when he said at a dealer opening event in Beijing that it was “too early” to determine what kind of impact his brands – Jaguar and Land Rover – might feel from Beijing’s move.

The city announced last month that it would limit the issuance of license plates for new cars in Beijing, including popular low-cost microvans, to 240,000 in 2011, which is less than a third the number of cars estimated to have been sold last year in the city of nearly 20 million people.

Municipal authorities said it also would limit license plates to Beijing residents, and bar cars that don’t have Beijing plates from entering the downtown area during rush hour.

Lower-priced cars are expected to take the biggest hit from the new rules since buyers of those cars are assumed to lack the financial resources to get now scarce license plates. In Shanghai, which began auctioning license plates in 1994, some 8,000 to 9,000 plates are auctioned monthly, each going for an average of around $6000 last year, according to the Shanghai Daily newspaper. While Beijing plans to issue its license plates through a lottery instead of an auction, wealthy drivers can theoretically buy the plates from lottery winners.

The type of consumer who can afford a Jaguar is almost certainly also the type who can convince a lottery-winner to part with his or her hard-won license plate. Yet Jaguar Land Rover’s Mr. Grace said it was too early to tell what kind of eventual impact the city’s new traffic fighting measures might have on his brands’ sales, and that the company is still carefully studying the new regulations.

He made those remarks as the company added a new Jaguar store to Beijing, at the event to mark the new dealer opening in Beijing’s Chaoyang district.

The new store, owned and run by a local dealer chain that operates mostly premium brands, such as BMW and Volvo, is expecting to sell about 420 to 480 Jaguar cars a year. “If it wasn’t for the license plate restrictions, we would have been able to sell more than 600 cars a year,” one of the dealer’s key officials told China Real Time.

While Mr. Grace took a cautious stance on Jaguar and Land Rover sales in Beijing this year, he gave a rosy forecast for the two brands’ overall sales in China. Last year, Jaguar sold 2,655 cars in China, up nearly 50% from 2009, while Land Rover’s sales more than doubled to 23,459 cars. In total, the two brands sold 26,114 cars in China last year.

This year Mr. Grace said the company is aiming to sell more than 40,000 cars. He did not provide a separate forecast for Jaguar and Land Rover.