NEV sector

With strong policy support from the central government, China's new-energy vehicle sector is expected to retain an explosive growth rate and sell about 700,000 vehicles this year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said on Tuesday.

The association said the removal of restrictions on purchasing new-energy vehicles nationwide would stimulate the sales of NEVs in cities that apply such restrictions, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Preferential policies for government promotion of new-energy vehicles have quantitative requirements, which will push the development of new-energy buses, the association said.

The new national charging standard for NEVs went into effect on Jan 1 and is also expected to help the market surge. China produced 340,471 new-energy vehicles and sold 331,092, an increase of 330 percent and 340 percent from the previous year. The growth rate in China's overall auto industry was 3.3 percent in production and 4.7 percent in overall sales.

The country manufactured 254,633 pure electric cars and sold 247,482, a surge of 4.2 times and 4.5 times year-on-year. The output and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles were 85,838 and 83,610 units, rising 190 and 180 percent from the previous year.

The proportion of NEV sales in China's total vehicle sales achieved a record high of 1.3 percent last year. It is the first time NEV sales accounted for more than 1 percent of the country's total vehicle sales. That is much higher than industry experts' expectations of 200,000 units, as predicted at the beginning of the year.

Dong Yang, executive vice-president of CAAM, urged NEV makers to pay more attention to the quality of vehicles and customer experience, instead of output.

Dong said automakers should lower the cost and improve the performance of their new-energy vehicles. "They should enhance the development of technologies and vehicle safety," he said.

Wu Shaoming, vice-president and secretary-general of CAAM, said the next five years would be full of opportunities for NEV makers, who should seize the opportunities to transform and upgrade their companies.

According to Wu, China's NEV sales will account for 6 to 8 percent of the country's total vehicles sales by 2020.