Beijing has published its new five-year plan for intelligent connected new energy vehicles, promising that these will capture 70% of sales by 2030. That sounds more ambitious than it really is. The bolder target of the document is automated driving making it “large scale” by then.
China aims for NEVs to reach 70% in the passenger-car sector and 40% among commercial vehicles by the end of the decade. In reality, however, more can be expected. To put such figures into context: the previous target was set at 20% NEVs by 2025. But the market easily doubled that and settled for 48%.
Already close enough
The end of the decade is still more than three years away and judging by the numbers from last July, China is cruising at full speed towards its goal. Battery-electrics alone already reached 44% of sales during that summer month. With plug-in hybrids adding another 21%, the total number of NEVs already stands at 65%. Already close enough.
Under the NEV label, the government allows battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. As such, the remaining headroom shouldn’t be necessarily filled by BEVs.
Low average consumption
The plan was issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology together with eight other ministries, including the National Development and Reform Commission. It’s basically a confirmation of prior goals.
Interestingly, alongside the penetration target for NEVs, the document sets average battery-electric consumption at 11.5 kWh per 100 km and fleet fuel consumption at 3.3 litres per 100 km by 2030. These seem quite low figures to European standards, but in the many metropoles frugal city cars remain the popular choice.
Autonomous driving at large scale
The more daunting challenge sits deeper in the document: highly automated driving on highways, urban expressways and selected city streets at scale by 2030. China plans to treat self-driving no longer as a gadget, they want to think of it in terms of a national infrastructure.
It has, therefore, issued some rules. Vehicles equipped with autonomous systems must “greatly exceed” human drivers on safety. A monitoring platform will also guide the transition. Every incident must be reported at manufacturer and regional level. Upon that, the authorities will decide whether the product or the infrastructure needs updating – or worse: the vehicle mustbe banned.
20 million test kilometers
China is on its way. It granted its first production-access permits for Level 3 conditional autonomy at the end of last year to Changan and BAIC’s Arcfox. It remains restricted to designated roads in Chongqing and Beijing, but meanwhile more than 20,000 test licences have been issued, with test mileage soaring toward 20 million kilometer.
The MIIT has already approved the GB 44721-2026 safety standard for L3 and L4 systems, clearing the way for their development. In Europe, especially L4 systems are currently treated as regulatory experiments.
Battery production control
Finally, Beijing wants to exercise tighter control on the overheated car market. By authority, new entrants to the NEV market will be scrutinized in much more detail. Next to that, collaborations will be encouraged and the less competitive manufacturers, which struggle with decent quality, must close.
This accounts for the battery sector, too. Additionally, the officials want to slow down the production speed in exchange for more quality in the supplier field. It seems that the ‘Factory of the World’ is racing above the rpm’s that keep manufacturing healthy.
Several OEMs in global top ten
As such, the government seems aware that there’s a limit to the escape route of export. Chinese car shipments to Europe rose 26% between 2024 and 2025 to almost 1.2 million vehicles, despite the barrier tariffs from the EU constructed to avoid dumping.
Without putting an exact number on it, the plan explicitly wants “several” Chinese carmakers in the global top ten by sales. Only BYD is there today. As it shows, the rest will be chosen, not born.
