NEV sales boom during 'golden week' holiday

HEFEI, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- An auto show during the National Day "golden week" holiday, which lasts from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6, has shown the growing popularity of new energy vehicles (NEVs), a new focus of auto shows across China these days.

The 2023 Hefei International New Energy Vehicle Exhibition was held from Sept. 29 to Oct. 4 in Hefei, the capital city of east China's Anhui Province. More than 1,000 NEVs from 95 brands from home and abroad were on display at the show.

"My family has a fuel vehicle. Taking into account the cost of the car and other issues, we're ready to buy an NEV. I plan to come to the auto show this holiday to see if there is a suitable one for us," said resident Zhang Zhu, adding that they want to purchase a model worth around 200,000 yuan (about 27,856 U.S. dollars) at the show.

At the NEV exhibition, there were not only mini cars worth tens of thousands of yuan but also models with rich features worth up to 1 million yuan to meet different consumer demands. The NEV brands included established global giants such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, as well as China's rising automakers such as BYD, Chery and NIO.

Wu Hu, who visited the auto show, said he found the intelligent experience and entertainment functions of domestic NEVs particularly attractive.

"At this auto show, we had more than 100 orders of various models in one day, equivalent to the sales volume of one of our standard 4S stores for the whole month," said Dai Xiaohui with domestic automaker Chery.

"The construction and coverage of various charging facilities are sufficient now, and NEVs can fully meet our travel needs," said Zheng Li, a Hefei citizen who also came to the exhibition.

China is the world's largest NEV producer and market. In the first eight months of this year, China saw its NEV sales surge 39.2 percent year on year to over 5.37 million units, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows.

In its latest work plan for the auto industry, the Chinese government said it aims to bring this year's NEV sales to 9 million units, an increase of 30 percent year on year.