China’s new energy car sales have topped the world for the third consecutive year, with 777,000 such cars sold in 2017, representing 54.7% of the world’s total sales, according to a report by state-owned media People.cn .
China sold 777,000 new energy cars in 2017, representing a 53.3% growth compared with 2016. More than 80% of the new energy cars sold were electric vehicles, while about 16% of the cars were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
China joins the U.S., Norway, Germany and France as the world’s top five markets for new energy passenger cars. However, these four countries sold a combined 351,8000 vehicles, compared with China’s 556,000 sales.
China also ramped up deployment of EV chargers to facilitate the growth of EVs. As of 2017, there were 210,000 public EV chargers and more than 1,400 public charging stations on highways covering 19 provinces and cities.
However, the survey by China’s State Information Center indicates that the availability of EV charger is still the biggest concerns for car owners. The top three concerns include the shortage of public chargers, small battery capacity and safety of batteries.
China is now the only country with EV manufacturing start-ups with valuations of US$1 billion or more. China has six EV unicorns with combined valuation of nearly US$20 billion, compared to zero such firms in the U.S. or anywhere else.
Chinese EV makers NIO, WM Motor, BAIC BJEV, Xiaopeng Motors, Byton and Youxia Motors, has valuations of US$5 billion, US$5 billion, US$4.5 billion, US$1.6 billion, US$1.2 billion and US$19.2 billion respectively, according to China Money Network’s China Unicorn Ranking.
