China Targets 70% NEV Share by 2030, Scaled Autonomous Driving Deployment

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and eight other government departments jointly issued the “15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Industry”on Sept. 11, setting out a new roadmap for the country’s automotive industry over the next five years.

The plan calls for new-energy passenger cars and commercial vehicles to account for 70% and 40%, respectively, of new-vehicle sales in their respective segments by 2030.

Based on current market data, the 70% NEV target for passenger cars is no longer a distant goal.

According to CPCA data, NEVs accounted for 65.2% of domestic passenger-car retail sales in August 2026.

This is up 9.9 percentage points from a year earlier, while retail sales of ICE vehicles fell 40% year on year.

If NEV penetration continues to rise at its current pace, the 70% target could be reached ahead of schedule during the first half of the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

For commercial vehicles, NEV penetration reached 44.1% in July 2026, although the cumulative rate for the first seven months stood at only 35%.

Monthly penetration has already crossed the 40% threshold, but keeping the annual rate above 40% will still require addressing charging and energy-refueling challenges in long-haul freight operations.

On the technology front, the plan calls for average fuel consumption of passenger cars and average electricity consumption of battery-electric passenger cars to reach around 3.3 L/100 km and 11.5 kWh/100 km, respectively, by 2030.

For autonomous driving, the plan calls for vehicles equipped with autonomous-driving functions to enter large-scale deployment by 2030, with highly automated driving enabled on highways, urban expressways and selected urban roads.

The target broadly aligns with recent regulatory developments.

In August, China issued its first mandatory national standards for L3 and L4 autonomous driving, which will take effect on July 1, 2027.

That leaves the market roughly three years between the implementation of the mandatory standards and 2030 to complete testing, certification, vehicle development and large-scale deployment.

The plan also sets targets for the industry’s structure. By 2030, labor productivity across the industry is expected to rise 15% from 2025 levels.

Meanwhile, China is to foster several automakers that rank among the world’s top 10 by sales and component suppliers that rank among the global top 100.

In the first half of 2026, BYD, Geely and Chery entered the global top 10 automakers by sales, while the number of Chinese companies on the global top 100 auto-parts supplier list rose to 17.

The plan also gives greater weight to internationalization, including raising the global recognition of Chinese automotive brands, strengthening China’s influence over international standards and regulations, and promoting a greener, lower-carbon transformation across the automotive supply chain.

For Chinese automakers that have already entered overseas markets, expanding exports is only the first step.

Local production, supply-chain deployment and regulatory compliance will become longer-term priorities in the next phase of overseas expansion.

Market performance in 2026 suggests that NEV adoption has moved beyond an incremental growth segment and is beginning to reshape the structure of China’s entire automotive industry.