China Electric Vehicles (EV) Market

On December 28, 2018, the PRC State Administration for Market Regulation and the PRC National Standardization Administration jointly issued the Electric Vehicle Energy Consumption Standards, effective on July 1, 2019, to regulate electric vehicles regarding their energy efficiency.

In certain cities in China, municipal governments impose quotas and lottery or bidding systems to limit the number of license plates issued to ICE vehicles, but exempt NEVs from these restrictions to incentivize the development of the NEV market.

Nevertheless, in January 2018, the Beijing municipal government announced that it would only allow BEVs to be considered the NEVs exempt from the license plate restrictions, and EREVs would be treated as ICE vehicles in Beijing for the purposes of obtaining license plates.

On December 10, 2018, the National Development and Reform Commission, or the NDRC, promulgated the Provisions on Administration of Investment in Automotive Industry, effective on January 10, 2019, which categorize EREVs as electric vehicles, although its impact on the Beijing municipal government's license plate policy remained uncertain.

China is both the largest passenger vehicle market and the largest NEV market in the world as measured by sales volume. China's NEV market is currently skewed towards BEVs, as 81.3% of the NEVs sold in China in 2019 were BEVs, according to the CIC Report.

As of December 31, 2019, fewer than 25% of families in first-tier cities in China had parking space suitable for installing home charging stalls, compared with over 70% of families in the United States, according to the CIC Report.

As a result, a substantial number of BEV owners in China have to rely on public charging infrastructure. As of December 31, 2019, the ratio of NEV parc to public fast charging stalls was 17.7 to 1, according to the CIC Report. This demonstrates the insufficient number of public fast charging stalls in China to support the growth of BEVs.

In April 2020, the PRC Ministry of Finance and other national regulatory authorities issued a circular to extend the original end date of subsidies for NEV purchasers to the end of 2022 and reduce the amount of subsidies in 10% increments each year commencing from 2020.

However, only NEVs with an MSRP of RMB300,000 or less before subsidies are eligible for such subsidies starting from July 2020