At the 2026 World New Energy Vehicle Congress in Haikou, data painted a picture of an industry entering a more complex phase. In the first half of 2026 global NEV sales reached 11.234 million units, up 14% year on year, with penetration at 24%. Wan Gang emphasized that expanding growth space and strengthening industry resilience are now the priorities for NEV development.
Zhu Huarong, chairman of China Changan Automobile Group, used the phrase "the boat is midstream where the current runs faster, the mountain half-climbed where the slope grows steeper" to describe the moment. He judged that, by the logic of industry evolution, the global sales threshold for vehicle makers keeps rising: over the next three to five years, 3.5 million units may only mean "surviving," 5 to 7 million "getting by," and 8 to 10 million "doing well." He expects the top ten global firms to hold 80% of the market by 2030, making consolidation unavoidable.
The numbers behind the shift are striking: in 2019 global NEV sales were 2.1 million with 2.6% penetration; by 2025 annual sales reached 20.7 million with 24% penetration — roughly a tenfold rise in six years, with more than 100 countries seeing explosive NEV growth. Intelligentization is moving from quantitative to qualitative change: in the first half of 2026 China's passenger cars with L2 assisted driving exceeded 70% penetration, projected to reach about 95% by 2030.
Multi-path parallel has become consensus. In the first half of 2026 the global broad-NEV share reached 31%. Zhu Huarong argued that over the next 10 to 15 years no single route will "win the world," and localized, multi-path approaches are the rational choice. Deeper still is the significance for energy security and carbon reduction, as transport is the world's third-largest carbon-emitting sector at about a quarter of total emissions.
Source: China Science Daily / ScienceNet
