A draft blueprint for the development of the “new energy vehicle” sector, which includes hybrids and fully-electric vehicles, comes after the government withdrew subsidies for carmakers earlier this year.
China is the world’s largest new energy vehicle market, but sales of electric motors plummeted 34 percent on-year in September, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s draft proposal said China should seek to ensure one in four of all vehicles sold in 2025 were either hybrids or fully-electric vehicles.
China would also continue to develop electric vehicle battery technologies, improve infrastructure for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and driverless cars, it said. The country also aims to promote intelligent connected vehicles by lifting the share of their sales in total automobile sales to about 30 percent by 2025.
Highly autonomous ICVs might achieve commercial use in certain regions and scenarios, the draft plan said. The draft proposal, which includes guidelines for the development of the new energy vehicle sector from 2021 to 2035, is open for public feedback until December 9.
Fuelled by rising incomes and government sales incentives, China is the golden goose upon which the global automotive industry has staked its future.
The plan came as the government steps up efforts to energize the automobile sector, which lost steam in 2018 with car sales dropping for the first time in over two decades.
Passenger vehicle sales in China have now fallen for 15 consecutive months, according to the CAAM. But the country’s NEV sales posted double-digit growth in the first 10 months of 2019 despite a sluggish automobile market. NEV sales accounted for less than 5 percent of total new car sales during this period.
The government had earlier said it was planning to impose quotas requiring carmakers to maintain a certain percentage of new energy vehicles in their Chinese production.
