NEVs to account for over 20% of car sales in 2025

New energy vehicles will make up at least 20 percent of new cars sales in China in 2025, as the burgeoning sector continues to gather speed in the world's largest vehicle market, said a senior official at the country's leading auto industry association.

Fu Bingfeng, executive vice-president and secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, estimates that sales of electric cars and plug-in hybrids will grow at over 40 percent year-on-year in the next five years.

"In five to eight years, a vast number of gasoline cars that cannot meet China's emissions standards will be phased out and around 200 million new cars will be bought to replace them. This creates huge opportunities for the new energy vehicle sector," said Fu at the China Auto Forum held in Shanghai from June 17 to 19.

In the first five months this year, combined sales of new energy vehicles totaled 950,000 units in the country, rising 220 percent from the same period last year, because of a lower comparative base in the COVID-hit 2020.

Statistics from the association show that electric cars and plug-in hybrids accounted for 8.7 percent of new car sales in China from January to May. The figure was 5.4 percent by the end of 2020.

Fu said there were 5.8 million such vehicles on Chinese streets by the end of May, roughly half of the global total. The association is considering scaling up its estimated NEVs sales to 2 million this year, up from its previous estimate of 1.8 million units.

Guo Shouxin, an official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said China's auto industry is expected to see faster development during the 14th Five-year Plan (2021-25) period.

"The trend of the Chinese auto industry's positive development in the long run will not change, and our determination to develop smart electric cars will not change either," Guo said.

Carmakers are speeding up their efforts to shift towards electrification. Wang Jun, president of Changan Auto, said the Chongqing-based carmaker will roll out 26 electric cars in five years.