Shanghai (ZXZC)- According to the data released by China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), from January to December, the cumulative sales of new energy passenger vehicles reached 556,393 units, surging over 70% compared with 328,864 units in 2016.

The December sales of China's new energy passenger vehicles skyrocketed 132% year on year to 98,366 units, increasing 17,599 units compared with November sales. The new energy passenger vehicles saw month-on-month growth for eleven consecutive months throughout 2017.

During 2017, Chinese passenger vehicle market saw weak growth of 2.1% on an annual basis. The NEVs boasted an annual increment of 200,000 units, contributing a lot to the total 2017 increment of 500,000 units for the whole passenger vehicle market. More strikingly, the robust MoM increase of NEVs also became the highlight for the whole vehicle market.

Specifically, starting with monthly sales of 6,500 new energy passenger vehicles in January, 2017, three months saw MoM sales increment of more than 10,000 units during February and December. Excluding January sales, the following months all posted large year-on-year sales growth in 2017.

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, attributed the consecutive 11 MoM sales growth to several factors, first, the quick start of demands from purchasing-restricted cities like Beijing at the beginning of 2017, then the scheduled release of polices, such as NEV subsidies and the exemption of vehicle purchase tax, and last carmakers' concentration on developing NEVs.

Cui Dongshu also added that 2018 will see the transformation of the Chinese NEV market from a policy-driven one to a market-driven one. Government's support for license plates in some purchasing-restricted cities will reach a peak and Beijing, Shanghai are even likely to give no increment in license plates. Besides, new round of government subsidies will favor long-range and low-consumption models. The regional subsidies are likely to gradually shrink. With these disadvantageous factors, Cui Dongshu predicted that it shouldn't be too optimistic on NEV sales growth in 2018.