A total of 148,000 new energy vehicles were sold in the first two months of this year in China, up by 98.9% year-on-year, against negative growth of the entire automobile industry, according to data released Monday by China’s Association of Automobile Manufacturers on auto-stats.org.cn.
Among them, 114,000 units were pure EVs, up by 127.9% year-on-year, while 34,000 units were hybrid EVs.
These green vehicles accounted for 3.84% of all automobiles sold in the country over these two months, which came to 3.85 million units, down by 14.9% year-on-year.
Last year, a total of 1.26 million NEVs were sold in the country, accounting for 4.47% of all automobiles sold, which hit 28.08 million units.
2019 started off well for the sector with a total of 93,000 units sold in January, up by 138% year-on-year. But February only saw a total of 53,000 NEVs sold, up by 53.6% year-on-year. The slowdown in this single month might be because of multiple factors including sluggish economic outlook, the most important holiday Chinese Lunar New Year and the uncertainty on subsidies measures. Both months combined still amounted to robust NEV sales in China.
The Chinese government stated early this month that it will continue to subsidize the NEV sector, while detailed measures are yet to be rolled out.
China aims to put 5 million new energy cars on the road by 2020. The country already has the world’s largest NEV stock, with cumulative sales of almost 3 million units by 2018.