Half of Car Sales in China Are Now Plugins!

‌6 hours agoJosé Pontes

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Plugin vehicles are all the rage in the Chinese auto market, with plugins scoring 876,000 sales (in a 1.76-million-unit overall market). That’s up 23% year over year (YoY).

Looking deeper at the numbers, growth basically came from the PHEV side — BEVs were up by just 1% in June, while PHEVs jumped 70% in the same period, to a record 393,000 units. Breaking down plugin sales by powertrain, BEVs had 55% of sales, or some 482,500 units, below this year’s average of 59%. Clearly, there’s rising popularity of plugin hybrids in this market.

The year-to-date (YTD) tally is around 4.3 million units, a significant rise over the 3.3 million units in the same period of 2023.

Share-wise, June saw plugin vehicles hit a record 49.9% market share! Full electrics (BEVs) alone accounted for 28% of the country’s auto sales. This pulled the 2024 share to 43% (25% BEV), and with the market still with plenty of room for growth, the year should end at around 50%.

Comparing this result with June 2023, at the time, the plugin share was 35% (24% BEV), which means that, while BEVs are experiencing moderate growth (24% vs. 28%), the PHEV share is growing faster (11% vs. 22%). At this pace, we should have the Chinese market fully electrified around 2030, if not sooner.