China’s NEV market: top five cities with the highest sales of new-energy trucks and vans in 2020

Buyers snapped up 58,045 units of new-energy trucks and vans in mainland China last year to arrest a two-year slide in sales

Shenzhen topped the list of cities with 12,858 vehicles sold, making up 22.2 per cent of China’s NEV truck and van sales

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Visitors looking at a new energy bus during a promotional activity for new energy vehicles in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 6:00pm, 2 Feb 2021Updated: 6:00pm, 2 Feb 2021

Chinese carmakers are making a huge bet on the future of new energy vehicles (NEVs), raising a large pile of capital from investors at home and abroad to finance their ambitions.

While NIO, Xpeng and BYD are dominating the headlines with their rivalry in the passenger electric car segment, commercial vehicle manufacturers are separately slugging it out in their own turf in the sale of new-energy trucks and vans, as the government introduced policies to cut its dependence on fossil fuels and has also pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060.

NEVs are described as pure electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles, according to China’s NEV industry development plan published in November.

In 2020, Chinese consumers bought 58,045 units of such cargo trucks and vans, according to data from EV Partner, an electric vehicle specialist website. Sales fell for a second year to 58,000 units in 2019 from as high as 147,000 in 2017.

Most cargo vehicles powered by clean energy were sold in the southern province of Guangdong last year, home to some of the nation’s fastest-growing industries and richest billionaires. It recorded 19,899 transactions. That is more than triple the volume of 5,734 in the southwestern province of Sichuan, which was placed second.