Beijing (ZXZC)- In the year 2022, China’s overall auto output and sales all sustained a growing momentum, especially the performance of new energy vehicles (NEVs). In the meantime, the country’s auto export volume remained promising, with its monthly records refreshed repeatedly.

In the last month of 2022, China produced 2.383 million vehicles in total, down 0.3% and 18.2% over the previous month and the previous year, respectively, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Meanwhile, with 2.556 million vehicles sold, the country saw a 9.7% month-on-month increase but a 8.4% year-on-year decrease in December auto sales. 

Nonetheless, with the blooming numbers achieved in the some of the months of 2022, China’s overall auto output and sales still sustained a year-on-year growth annually. In the full-year period, there were 27.021 million vehicles produced across the country, up 3.4% year over year. Meanwhile, China’s annual auto sales climbed up 2.1% from a year ago to 26.864 million units.

In the recent years, China has been shifting its focus onto the NEV market. With the government formulating preferential policies and automakers introducing competitive products, China’s overall NEV market sustained a rapid growth, with 7.058 million (+96.9% YoY) and 6.887 million (+93.4% YoY) NEVs produced and sold in 2022. 

Photo credit: BYD

NEVs accounted for 25.6% of the country’s total auto sales last year, which was 12.1 percentage points higher than the previous year. Among which, 5.365 million units sold in the past year were battery-electric vehicles, hiking up 81.6% year on year. Meanwhile, yearly sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which came in at 1.518 million units in 2022, were also 1.5 times higher than a year ago.  

In December 2022, there were 324,000 vehicles shipped overseas by automakers in China, representing a 45.4% spike year-on-year. Among which, 275,000 units were passenger vehicles, jumping 47.2% over the previous year. 

Of the vehicles shipped abroad in the past month, 82,000 units were NEVs, more than quadrupled from that of the year-ago period. 

China’s cumulative automobile export volume in the year 2022 stepped over the 3-million-unit threshold to 3.111 million units, zooming up 54.4% from a year ago, roughly 679,000 units of which were NEVs. 

China’s passenger vehicle sales amounted to 2.265 million units in December, growing 9% over the previous month, but dropping 6.7% over the earlier year. Comparing to a year ago, monthly sales of conventional oil-fueled vehicles in China dropped 25.3% to 1.31 million units. 

There were 23.563 million passenger vehicles wholesaled by automakers in China through 2022, representing a 9.5% increase from a year ago, thanks to the national purchase tax cut policy and the robust growth in NEV sales. 

Photo credit: NIO

In the past few years, Chinese indigenous automakers have been striving to grasp a fair share of the market by developing new energy and intelligent connected vehicles. Chinese indigenous passenger vehicle brands continued to fetch increasingly higher market share through 2022, seizing 49.9% of the local auto market, which was 5.4 percentage points higher than a year ago. In the past year, the cumulative sales of China-branded passenger vehicles summed up to 11.766 million units, jumping 22.8% over the previous year.

On the other hand, due to the overdraft of demand under the previous environmental protection and overloading regulation policies in China, pairing with the coronavirus-led challenges, such as the high oil prices, the overall demand for commercial vehicles has slowed down in 2022.

Last December, the production and sales volumes of commercial vehicles in China amounted to 258,000 and 291,000 units, up 9.8% and 15.2% month-on-month while decreasing 32.1% and 20.2% year on year, respectively. 

In 2022, the country’s output and sales of commercial vehicles stood at 3.185 million and 3.3 million vehicles, respectively, down 31.9% and 31.2% year on year. 

Despite the relatively weak market domestically, commercial vehicle makers in China demonstrated a prominent performance across overseas market with 582,000 units exported in total, representing a 44.9% leap year-on-year. Among which, 27,000 units were new energy commercial vehicles, more than doubling from last year.