Car companies including Nio, Xpeng Motors, Li Auto, Tesla China, and BYD have accumulated a lot of new energy credits last year, and now they can start trading them.

Chinese automakers can trade their credits now, with a centralized trading deadline of Aug. 31, according to a document released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) dated July 15.

Vehicle companies that generate negative credits in 2020 should submit a report for offsetting their credits and a transaction filing agreement through the management platform by Aug. 31, according to the document.

The credit management platform can be found at https://sjfxt.miit.gov.cn, according to the MIIT.

China's so-called dual credit plan, which has been in effect since April 1, 2018, allows car companies that fail to meet fuel consumption control requirements to offset negative credits from excessive fuel consumption through their own generated new energy vehicle credits, or by purchasing new energy credits from other companies.

If a car company is unable to get their negative credits to zero, then they will need to submit a product adjustment plan to the MIIT and set a deadline for compliance.

Until their negative credits are zeroed out, products with substandard fuel consumption cannot be sold to the public.

On July 15, the MIIT released a report showing that Chinese automakers had 4.37 million positive credits and 1.07 million negative credits in 2020.

The 116 local Chinese companies had 4.32 million positive credits and 1 million negative credits.

A report by the MIIT at the end of May showed that the unit price in 2020 was generally higher than RMB 1,000 ($155), with an average transaction price of RMB 1,204.

In comparison, the unit price of points traded in 2018 is mainly within RMB 1,000 yuan, and nearly 90 percent of the units traded in 2019 are no more than RMB 500 yuan.

The unit price of new energy credit transactions in China has risen from RMB 300-500 yuan initially to RMB 2500-3000 yuan, according to a previous research report by China Industrial Securities.

At the end of April, the MIIT released data on Chinese automakers earning new energy credits in 2020. Nio was not listed in the table at the time, probably because its vehicles were manufactured by JAC.

That data shows JAC earning 256,518 new energy credits in 2020, the vast majority of which should start with Nio.

William Li, founder, chairman, and CEO of Nio, has revealed that Nio harvested 200,000 credits last year.

If Nio sells all the 200,000 credits it gained in 2020, they would be worth up to RMB 600 million ($92.6 million) at a price of RMB 3,000 per unit.

Xpeng received 109,992 new energy credits last year, worth RMB 330 million.

Li Auto received 71,776 new energy credits last year, valued at RMB 210 million.

Tesla received more than 860,000 new energy credits in China in 2020, the most of any car company, valued at RMB 2.58 billion.

WM Motor received 151,625 new energy credits last year, valued at RMB 450 million.

BYD received 754,198 new energy credits last year, valued at RMB 2.26 billion.

SAIC-GM-Wuling received 440,477 new energy credits worth RMB 1.32 billion last year.

Carmakers earn 4.37 million positive points in 2020 under China's dual credit policy