Interesting article but wrong in some aspects. You present Xpeng, Zeekr and Xiaomi as all in on BEVs as they have been, but they all are launching PHEV/EREVs. BYD had a hard time selling PHEVs in China this year, but see booming sales in Europe and is launching more models the next few months. China still sells 45% ICE cars, so there will still be a few more years to push the rest out. I agree that BEVs will grow as the tech get better and cheaper, but we are not there yet as of a complete replacement in most markets.
yeah for sure sales wouldn't stop overnight. I do think we are at an interesting inflection point. With the next gen of PHEV gets bigger batteries, it now approaches the inflection point where the additional complexity may not be worth the tradeoff, from both user experience and company's profitability. Looking forward, having a gas generator may not be the sales booster that we have accustomed to seeing in the past few years.
Yes the technical inflection point of costs is interesting as you describe it and hopefully getting closer.
But one big question is usability and that is not only dependenton the tech in the car. If people in many parts of China aren't ready to switch to BEV it could be a question of belif of how convenient it is to charge. People who don't have easy access to cheap charging will have a longer step to go to PHEV and BEV, as the battery is of little use, independent of size, if you can't charge it! :)
Sales of specific cars as PHEVs in Europe is also dependent on different regulations, tariffs and so on. So technology costs is one of many aspects that influence the actual sales of different types of cars.
Convenience is certainly an issue. I don't think I read many such blogs this year, but in previous years stories of going home for Chinese New Year noted long lines at charging stations, and some that were physically inaccessible because the parking lot hadn't been plowed. (Was it 2024 when there was lots of snow? or 2023?)
My suspicion is that many car owners only make long drives a few times a year, but when they do, they really, really don't want to spend extra time on the road. Hence an ICE or a PHEV is valuable. Furthermore, while PHEVs carry a cost premium, they may not carry a higher purchase price than ICEs (that would depend on the subsidy of the moment, lower for PHEVs than EVs but at times still substantial).
Convenience could be an issue for taxis as well, at least in some locations where average trips are longer. Do EVs have enough range for an entire shift, especially during seasons when they need to run heat or AC? I used DiDi a lot in Hangzhou this summer, but I'm better at reading than speaking Chinese, plus DiDi appears to discourage drivers from chatting with passengers. I didn't keep track of distances,
I was at BYD HQ in June, and also visited GAC Aion and Xpeng and SAIC VW and NIO. The PHEV drivetrains are now very sophisticated, I think it was BYD boasting that their ICE component had the highest thermal efficiency ever for a production gasoline ICE.
I track monthly Chinese auto sales, as of August there's no clear downturn in PHEV sales, though there was a trough at the start of 2025. However, I don't track exports, and there are models that come with both EV and PHEV/REEV drivetrains where my data sources don't break sales by drivetrain. (Some companies, such as BYD, generally have a different name for EVs and PHEVs, but not all do.)
In any case, my data give Aug 2024 PHEV sales at 17.6%, August 2025 at 16.8% (with ambiguous models at 6.4% and 5.3%). However, since the overall market is growing, PHEV sales were 338,224 in August 2024 and 342,375 in August 2025. This is using my own categorization for which models are PHEV/REEV. Car companies chase volume, not share. And profits, but we don't get info on gross margins per model...
Interesting article but wrong in some aspects. You present Xpeng, Zeekr and Xiaomi as all in on BEVs as they have been, but they all are launching PHEV/EREVs. BYD had a hard time selling PHEVs in China this year, but see booming sales in Europe and is launching more models the next few months. China still sells 45% ICE cars, so there will still be a few more years to push the rest out. I agree that BEVs will grow as the tech get better and cheaper, but we are not there yet as of a complete replacement in most markets.
yeah for sure sales wouldn't stop overnight. I do think we are at an interesting inflection point. With the next gen of PHEV gets bigger batteries, it now approaches the inflection point where the additional complexity may not be worth the tradeoff, from both user experience and company's profitability. Looking forward, having a gas generator may not be the sales booster that we have accustomed to seeing in the past few years.
Yes the technical inflection point of costs is interesting as you describe it and hopefully getting closer.
But one big question is usability and that is not only dependenton the tech in the car. If people in many parts of China aren't ready to switch to BEV it could be a question of belif of how convenient it is to charge. People who don't have easy access to cheap charging will have a longer step to go to PHEV and BEV, as the battery is of little use, independent of size, if you can't charge it! :)
Sales of specific cars as PHEVs in Europe is also dependent on different regulations, tariffs and so on. So technology costs is one of many aspects that influence the actual sales of different types of cars.
Convenience is certainly an issue. I don't think I read many such blogs this year, but in previous years stories of going home for Chinese New Year noted long lines at charging stations, and some that were physically inaccessible because the parking lot hadn't been plowed. (Was it 2024 when there was lots of snow? or 2023?)
My suspicion is that many car owners only make long drives a few times a year, but when they do, they really, really don't want to spend extra time on the road. Hence an ICE or a PHEV is valuable. Furthermore, while PHEVs carry a cost premium, they may not carry a higher purchase price than ICEs (that would depend on the subsidy of the moment, lower for PHEVs than EVs but at times still substantial).
Convenience could be an issue for taxis as well, at least in some locations where average trips are longer. Do EVs have enough range for an entire shift, especially during seasons when they need to run heat or AC? I used DiDi a lot in Hangzhou this summer, but I'm better at reading than speaking Chinese, plus DiDi appears to discourage drivers from chatting with passengers. I didn't keep track of distances,
I was at BYD HQ in June, and also visited GAC Aion and Xpeng and SAIC VW and NIO. The PHEV drivetrains are now very sophisticated, I think it was BYD boasting that their ICE component had the highest thermal efficiency ever for a production gasoline ICE.
I track monthly Chinese auto sales, as of August there's no clear downturn in PHEV sales, though there was a trough at the start of 2025. However, I don't track exports, and there are models that come with both EV and PHEV/REEV drivetrains where my data sources don't break sales by drivetrain. (Some companies, such as BYD, generally have a different name for EVs and PHEVs, but not all do.)
In any case, my data give Aug 2024 PHEV sales at 17.6%, August 2025 at 16.8% (with ambiguous models at 6.4% and 5.3%). However, since the overall market is growing, PHEV sales were 338,224 in August 2024 and 342,375 in August 2025. This is using my own categorization for which models are PHEV/REEV. Car companies chase volume, not share. And profits, but we don't get info on gross margins per model...