Miao Wei, the former Minister of Information and Industry Technology, said that the target of a 25% penetration rate of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China could be achieved at the end of 2022, three years ahead of schedule. He made the remarks at a new-energy vehicle meeting held in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. The New-Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035) released by the State Council in November 2020 said that sales of NEVs would reach about 20% of total new vehicle sales by 2025. China has witnessed a booming NEV consumption in the past couple of years. The penetration rate was less than 1% 10 years ago. Sales of NEVs in 2012 were only 20,000 units. But at the end of May this year, the number of NEVs on the road reached 11.08 million. China's production and sales of NEVs have ranked first in the world every year since 2015, according to Xin Guobin, MIIT Vice Minister. The development of China's NEV sector has gone “from small to large, and from weak to strong”, and it has become an important force leading the transformation and upgrading of the global automobile industry, Xin said.
Among the world's top 10 best-selling NEVs last year, there were six Chinese brands. Among the top 10 companies in terms of power battery shipments, Chinese battery makers held six places, Xin noted. To boost the industry, the Chinese government issued two medium- and long-term development plans. The first planning period was from 2012 to 2020, and the second from 2021 to 2035. The State Council has established an inter-ministerial coordination system led by MIIT. Governments at different levels launched more than 600 policies to support the development of the industry, including technological innovation and safety supervision, which have promoted the rapid development of the NEV market in China. The sales figures are proof of the industry's rapid rise. Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), said in July that China's NEV sales accounted for 59% of the world's total. Cui attributed the performance of the Chinese market to the strong growth of domestic NEV consumption and a stable and efficient supply chain.
Chinese automaker BYD said on August 29 that its net income in the first six months of this year tripled from a year earlier, reaching CNY3.6 billion. BYD accounted for 24.7% of the country's NEV sales in the first half, rising 7.5 percentage points from last year, according to the company's filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the Global Times reports.
