Shanghai (ZXZC)- China new energy passenger vehicle grew 60% year on year to 84,226 units in August, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). The cumulative sales of the first eight months set a new record high with a total volume of 507,356 units, more than doubled compared to the same period last year.

In 2017, the country’s new energy passenger vehicle sales totaled 555,793 units, which we believe September will see the year-to-date sales surpass the 2017 volume. Here, the passenger vehicle includes locally-produced sedans, SUVs and MPVs.

Last month, the battery electric vehicle sales were 58,237 units, taking up 69% of the new energy passenger vehicle market while 25,989 units of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle were sold in August. In BEV segment, the A-class breakdown was the best-seller with 23,332 units sold. The A00-class sales, the main force before, fell 20% from a year ago to 22,093 units. The market share of the A00-class in BEV segment has shrunk to 38% compared with 65% of the same period last year.

In BEV segment, sales of top 10 models were all over 2,000 units. Even though the BAIC EC series were the only one which saw year-on-year sales decline in August, its year-to-date sales still took the top slot with market share up to 12%. Outside the top 10, the ES8 SUV, NIO’s first mass-produced model, ranked 11th with monthly sales of 1,296 units. Up to now, the start-up has delivered 2,627 ES8s.

Thanks to the new policy stimulus, the PHEV sales in August soared 147% over the previous year. Followed by Roewe i6, BYD Tang and BYD Qin took the first two places on the list while the BYD Tang is the most popular electric vehicles, including BEV and PHEV, with 5,043 vehicles sold. The PHEV version of BMW 5 series and BMW X1 were also on the list.