Sales of new vehicles in China running on new energies (electric, hybrid, fuel cell) recorded a sharp increase last year in an auto market that was in decline, a professional federation announced on Wednesday.
Read also: Electric cars: China's big leap forward in batteries
China is the world's largest automobile market.
However, car sales have been declining there since 2018, against a backdrop of a general economic slowdown and trade tensions with the United States.
The appearance of the new coronavirus in China and the first drastic containment measures heavily penalized sales at the start of last year (-78% over one year in February).
They then began to gradually increase from the spring, thanks to improved sanitary conditions.
1.37 million units sold
In 2020, some 25.31 million new vehicles were sold, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said.
This is a decline of 1.9% over one year.
Over this period, however, green vehicles did well. With 1.37 million units sold, their sales jumped by nearly 11%.
China, the world's main polluter, is targeting a fleet of vehicles in 2035 consisting mainly of so-called non-polluting vehicles.
To boost a sector which represented barely 5% of sales in China in 2019, Beijing is increasing the number of recharging and recycling points for batteries.
Earlier this week, the CPCA, another federation that specifically tracks passenger vehicle sales, also reported a 1.9% contraction of the overall Chinese auto market in 2020.
