NEV vehicle sales in China hit a new record in October

China’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) market recorded unprecedented growth in October. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), sales of this type of vehicle reached 1.43 million units, a rise of 11.1 percent over September, when the previous record set in December 2023, with nearly 1.2 million units, had already been beaten.

This surge in NEV sales in China mainly includes battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrids (PHEV), since sales of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in this Asian country are practically negligible.

Looking back, just one year earlier, in October 2023, NEV sales were still below the one million mark, at 956 thousand units. Year-on-year growth last October therefore came close to 50 percent, at 49.6 percent to be exact.

The Chinese market has begun to lean towards plug-in hybrids

In October 2024, out of a total of 3.05 million vehicles sold in China, 46.8 percent were NEVs. It is important to note, however, that the strong growth in sales of this type of vehicle has been driven mainly by rising demand for plug-in hybrids, which reached 89.7%, with a total of 587 thousand units sold. Demand for pure electric vehicles, meanwhile, remained higher with a total of 842 thousand units sold, but its growth was more moderate, reaching 30.4 percent.

Among the Chinese manufacturers that have benefited most from this shift in their local market, BYD stands out, delivering more than half a million vehicles to its customers in that country in October, of which 310,912 were plug-in hybrids. Geely also recorded notable growth, surpassing 100 thousand NEV sales for the first time, with its Galaxy, Zeekr and Lynk&Co brands.

Changan’s brands -Nevo, Deepal and Avatr- were also very well received by Chinese customers. This contrasts with the situation of Tesla in China during last October, which was not exactly one of the best months for the North American manufacturer.

Finally, it is worth noting that XPENG managed to rank ahead of NIO in sales last October, though not by much. Meanwhile, Xiaomi, which entered the car market in April, has kept growing ever since.