China: The Most Spectacular Electric Vehicle Market

Luke Gear
China: The Most Spectacular Electric Vehicle Market
IDTechEx's upcoming electric vehicle forums will take place in Tokyo, Japan, on 18th and 19th of September, and in Seoul, South Korea, on 25th and 26th of September.
 
For the first time, IDTechEx is pleased to announce a dedicated forum on the world's most spectacular electric vehicle market: China. China has accelerated from 17,600 plug-in EVs yearly in 2013 to top 1 million in 2018. The country has helped shock the rest of the world into action at all levels of the supply chain.
 
Most of this has been achieved in China's tier 1 cities, with a strong will at governmental level to reduce pollution. Powerful drivers have been in place: car lottery systems have made it difficult to obtain an ICE car but easy to get an EV; waiving costly license plate fees for EVs can save consumers up to $18,000; and, of course, a national subsidy scheme brings overall upfront EV costs down.
 
But the system has not been perfect. The quality of EVs, particularly from a few years ago, has been questionable, and it can be argued that it is an artificial market too reliant on subsidies. Moreover, as the world's largest auto market, strangling conventional car sales caused a global auto market decline in 2018.
 
In fact, to alleviate this in 2019 China appears to be rolling back some of the more bullish aspects of its position: subsidies are being phased out starting in 2020, regional ICE restrictions are softening, and non-plug-in HEVs are increasingly back on the table. Indeed, some EV start-ups in China, which became too reliant on subsidies, are struggling and organising huge financing rounds to fill the gap.
 
IDTechEx will be discussing these trends and more at the upcoming electric vehicle forums.
 
For more information on the events, please visit - www.IDTechEx.com/Japan and www.IDTechEx.com/Korea
 
Top Image Source: Holger Link