While COVID-19 posed a great challenge for China's automotive industry last year, the country saw its new energy vehicle (NEV) market grow. According to China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), China accounted for 63% of global NEV sales in 2022, maintaining a significant lead from Europe or North America.
Cui Dongshu, CPCA's secretary-general, released an analysis of new energy passenger cars worldwide on February 2. NEV includes battery, plug-in hybrid, hybrid and fuel cell EVs.
CPCA's data showed global new energy passenger vehicle sales reached 10.31 million units in 2022, a 63% increase from 2021. China took up 63% of the market with sales of 6.49 million cars. The record was 2.6 times European and 6.3 times North American sales.
Source: CPCA, compiled by DIGITIMES Asia, February 2023
China accounted for 52.3% of global NEV sales in 2021. Cui said the country saw strong demand in domestic and overseas markets last year. Supplies for batteries and semiconductors are relatively sufficient in China compared with other countries. Therefore, more China-made NEVs were exported to regions like Europe, where production and sale declined.
Cui said the European NEV market enjoyed stable sales in the first quarter of 2022 but went down after the Russia-Ukraine war started. The region's global market share decreased to 23.8% last year.
The US took up about 9.9% of NEV sales worldwide in 2022 as the market has not scaled up, according to CPCA. South Korea and Japan accounted for about 1% of the global market, respectively.
Cui said China's NEV market trend is significantly different from gasoline cars. It will be impacted by the consumers, policies and other macroeconomic factors. However, as the market grows to be well-developed and the national NEV subsidy program is terminated, the trend should return to normal gradually.
The secretary-general also said the global NEV penetration rate has increased rapidly to 13% in 2022. It was 8% in the previous year. Norway saw the highest rate at 74% last year, while China reached 25%. The US penetration rate was only 7%.
On Thursday, China's Ministry of Commerce said the country saw a 93.4% growth in new NEV sales last year. Moreover, NEVs held 25.6% of all new car sales, including gasoline vehicles. The proportion was one-eighth in 2021.
Xinhua News Agency reported that China had planned to increase new NEV's proportion in new car sales to 20% by 2025. The country hit the goal three years earlier.
