On October 13, 2026, the China Automobile Dealers Association's Passenger Car Market Information Sub-Committee (CPCA) released its September passenger-car market analysis. Retail sales of narrow passenger cars reached 1.618 million units, down 28.0% year on year but up 5.0% month on month; January-September cumulative retail was 13.334 million units, down 21.7%.
Fuel vehicles continued to shrink, with September fuel-car retail down 43% year on year (pure-fuel down 49%, conventional hybrids up 25%). But NEVs set records: NEV passenger-car retail reached 1.084 million units with retail penetration of 67.0%, and wholesale of 1.666 million units with wholesale penetration of 65.4% - both all-time highs. Battery-electric wholesale led at 1.126 million units, up 18.3%.
Exports were the standout growth engine. NEV passenger-car exports hit 558,000 units, up 163.5% year on year, with NEVs accounting for 60.8% of total passenger-car exports, up 21 percentage points. Self-brand domestic NEV retail penetration reached 84.5%, and new-force brands took 23.6% of retail, up 3.4 percentage points.
CPCA secretary-general Cui Dongshui attributed the soft 'golden September' to the Mid-Autumn holiday falling in late September, a high base from last year's subsidy cliff, and AI supply-chain pressure pushing up chip and memory prices and slowing new-model rollouts. He expects October and November declines to narrow markedly, with December nearing flat.
Image: Vehicles on display at an international mobility show. Source: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
