BAIC EC-Series, the top-selling EV in China

The Trump administration may be pulling back on clean cars, but China is all in. The latest numbers from China on passenger electric vehicles and electric bus sales are impressive, and they point to a future of global dominance for Chinese automakers in the EV world.

First, let’s look at passenger electric vehicle sales, as Clean Technica covered:

After the usual off-season (January and February), March came and electric car sales surged to 59,000 units in China, up 85% year over year (YoY). Quarter 1 2018 sales doubled compared to the same period last year, to over 122,000 units.

Consequently, the 2018 plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) share surged to 1.8%, not that far off from the 2.1% of 2017, and with sales expected to pick up significantly as the year advances, the 2018 PEV share should end north of the 3% threshold.

Last month, the Chinese OEMs represented roughly 40% of all PEVs registered globally, an impressive number that is sure to increase during 2018, possibly even beating its 46% record of last year.

Meanwhile, the Chinese EV automaker BYD had its second-best month ever with 13,100 registrations, just below their 16,000 units sold last December. Analysts expect BYD to start posting 20,000-plus performances in the second half of the year, putting it on par with Tesla’s sales forecasts.

To put those Chinese numbers into perspective, here are the most recent EV sales figures in the U.S. and California since 2011:

So while the entire U.S. has logged 54,423 EV sales in the first 3 months of 2018 (with almost half of that total — 26,771 — from California alone), China hit 59,000 in just one month, with the trend lines only going up.

But it’s not just passenger vehicles. China is heavily investing in electric buses. As Bloomberg reported:

China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Much of China’s commitment to electric transportation is due to local air quality concerns. But the country’s leadership surely sees a path to economic domination of the transportation technology of the future, just as they dominate manufacturing in other industries.

While China’s commitment to EVs and electric buses is certainly good for the environment and fight against climate change, it means the U.S. federal government is missing out on a golden economic opportunity, let alone environmental one. EVs are here to stay, and at this rate, it will be China cashing in and not the U.S.