EV market grows rapidly

Last year, 2.9 million battery-electric vehicles were sold in China, including 2.73 million passenger cars. That marks a 160 percent increase over the previous year, according to new data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Plug-in hybrid sales doubled to 600,000 units. A total of 26.3 million vehicles were sold in the People’s Republic last year (up 3.8 percent), of which nearly 21.5 million were passenger cars. Together, cars with alternative drive systems, known in China as New Energy Vehicles (NEV), accounted for a good 15 percent of all passenger cars sold. It is estimated that China accounts for 60 percent of all global NEV sales, according to Nikkei Asia.