Retail sales of passenger new-energy vehicles totaled 362,000 units in the first 13 days of September, down 10% year-on-year but up 16% from the same period last month, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said. Yet the NEV retail penetration rate hit a record 70.3% — above August's full-month record of 65.2%.
The CPCA cautioned against reading the figure as pure demand. The wider passenger-vehicle market shrank faster than the NEV segment, so the penetration number rose mechanically. Most NEV brands currently lack strong-selling models, the association noted, yet automakers still need steady output — turning sales efforts 'target-driven' and pushing volume even without solid order backlogs.
Wholesale numbers told a stronger story: manufacturers shipped 411,000 NEVs in September 1–13, up 1% year-on-year and 26% month-on-month. Year-to-date NEV wholesale reached 10.19 million units, up 9%, with wholesale penetration at 74.7%, reflecting continued export strength. NEV exports surged 154.7% in August alone, making up 58.4% of total vehicle shipments.
On the production side, the combustion-engine retreat deepened. Pure gasoline-vehicle output fell 51% year-on-year to 215,000 units in early September, while plug-in hybrid production dropped 20% to 174,000. In August, conventional fuel-vehicle retail collapsed 40% to 540,000 units, with pure ICE models down 45%.
The data underscores a structural inflection: China's auto market is contracting in combustion segments while NEV production and exports carry the industry — a transition the newly issued 15th Five-Year Plan aims to manage through capacity early-warning and market-based consolidation.
