China Electric Vehicle Market: 273,150 Units By 2017

In 2012, the main type of electric vehicle is pure electric type with the output of 11,241 units, accounting for the vast proportion of total output; compared with 2011, the output increased by 98.8% year-on-year. As for the hybrid electric vehicles, the output in 2012 was only 1,311 units. With the promotion of national industrial policies, the electric vehicle industry will develop rapidly, and the output is expected to reach 273,150 units by 2017.

As for the “Plan Draft for the Development of Energy-saving and New Energy Automotive Industry”, the development route of China’s new energy automotive industry which takes electric vehicles (including pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the same below) as the main strategic orientation has been determined basically. During the whole period of the “Twelfth Five-Year”, the state will give priority and pay more attention to supporting the development of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, so as to increase the cumulate sales volume of electric vehicles largely. And also, the three core technical directions of power battery, motor and electric control technology have been also determined.

As a kind of energy-saving automobile with transitional technology, hybrid electric vehicles (excluding plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) only enjoy the preferential finance and taxation or subsidies which are much lower than the electric vehicles. This also indicates the technical route for the development of China’s electric vehicle industry.

Under this technical route, the state plans to reach the ownership of more than 500,000 units in the electric vehicle market, and the ownership of energy-saving hybrid electric vehicles should reach one million units by 2015; and by 2020, the electric vehicle will reach 5 million units, and the sales volume of energy-saving hybrid electric vehicles will account for more than 50% of the total passenger cars sales volume. If calculated in accordance with the subsidy of CNY 50,000 to CNY 60,000 per electric vehicle and the subsidy of CNY 3,000 per energy-saving hybrid electric vehicle, the subsidy for electric vehicles will up to CNY 25 billion to CNY 30 billion by 2015, and the subsidy for energy-saving hybrid electric vehicles will reach CNY 3 billion; and by 2020, the total subsidy scale for electric vehicle will reach CNY 250 billion to CNY 300 billion.

Main Enterprises in China’s Electric Vehicle Industry:
1.    China FAW Group Corporation
2.    Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. (DFG)
3.    SAIC Motor Corporation Limited
4.    Chery Automobile Co., Ltd.
5.    Chongqing Changan Automobile Company Limited
6.    Zhejiang Geely Holding Group
7.    BYD Company Limited