Chinese electric car sales forecasted to hit 6 million

Electric vehicle sales in China earlier this year were forecasted to reach 5.5 million units but now experts have increased this estimate to 6 million after a burst of sales this summer. This is after July saw a double in new energy vehicle sales to 486,000 units which is a 20% increase to sales in passenger vehicles compared to the year prior. Experts accredit this large demand due to changes in customer mind set as well as government changes that have helped the automotive industry after Covid-19.

Domestic Chinese automakers are making quite a splash in the market like BYD who ended their production of fossil fuel-powered cars earlier this year and has seen steady growth throughout it with reports of 162,530 units sold per month for pure electric and hybrids. There are also other new automotive manufacturers like Hozon New Energy Automobile co. who only started production 8 years ago and focuses more on budget cars targeting customers outside of big cities. Last month they were able to deliver 14,037 vehicles to the domestic market and 1,382 to overseas markets. Though the International electric car giants Tesla are still holding strong in the tough Chinese market with a reported delivery of 28,217 with this being divided by 8,461 going to the local market and 19,756 being exported to Europe and the rest of Asia. Though there was a sharp fall in sales in June due to a factory shutdown due to upgrades happening to the Shanghai factory which plans to double its annual capacity.

The Chinese electric vehicle market dwarfs any other around the world with the American market being 1.2 million and Europe being only 3.2 million. So it makes sense why the market is filled with competition but with the new estimates of 6 million units for the year, this may cause other international car manufacturers to target the Chinese market to try and get their slice of the pie.