China EV vs ICE Sales: The Revolution That Already Happened

Picture a rainy evening on Nanjing Road in Shanghai. You’re crossing the street, distracted by your phone, when suddenly you realize something’s off. It’s silent. Not quiet. Silent. You look up, and every third car gliding past is electric. No engine rumble. Just the soft whir of progress, humming by in the rain.

Remember when electric cars were that weird thing your tech-obsessed friend kept talking about? When you’d nod politely and think, “Yeah, maybe in 2040”? Here’s the gut punch: in China, that future isn’t coming. It already arrived. And it happened so fast that even the people who bet their careers on it are still catching their breath.

One day you’re reading headlines screaming “EVs are struggling!” The next, it’s “EVs dominate the market!” Which one is true? Both. Neither. The real story is more startling than either extreme.

We’re going to trace the exact moment gasoline lost in China, unpack the numbers that made auto executives spit out their coffee, and figure out what this seismic shift means for the rest of us. No jargon. No hype. Just the cold, hard data that tells a surprisingly warm, human story about the fastest technology transition in automotive history.

Keynote: China EV vs ICE Sales

China crossed an irreversible tipping point in July 2024 when NEVs outsold ICE vehicles for the first time, capturing 51% market share. This threshold has held throughout 2025, confirming a structural revolution, not a cyclical trend. Domestic ICE sales collapsed 48% since their 2017 peak while NEV sales exploded 14.5-fold. BYD dominates with 34% market share. Forecasts project 80% to 90% NEV penetration by 2030, effectively ending the ICE era in the world’s largest auto market and reshaping global automotive competition forever.

The Numbers That Flipped Everything

That sinking feeling when you realize the ground shifted under your feet? Let’s give you the data that proves you’re not imagining it.

The One Date That Changed Automotive History

July 2024. Mark it. Frame it. Teach it to your kids someday. That’s the month Chinese consumers bought more electric cars than gas cars for the first time ever. This wasn’t a squeaker. This wasn’t a statistical tie. New Energy Vehicles captured 51.05% of the market, crossing a threshold that most analysts thought was still years away.

By December 2024, that share climbed to 52.6%. Then the floodgates opened. By August 2025, the year-to-date penetration hit 51%. September held steady at 49.7%. The message was clear: this wasn’t a fluke month. This was the new normal.

The full 2024 picture tells the story of momentum building to a crescendo: 10.98 million NEV retail sales, capturing 47.97% of the market. But 2025? That’s when the revolution became undeniable.

The 50/50 Tipping Point and Beyond

First half of 2025: NEVs achieved a stunning 50.1% market share. Imagine standing at that busy Beijing intersection where every other new car humming past is electric. That’s not a prediction anymore. That’s Tuesday afternoon.

June 2025 alone saw 53% NEV penetration. The scales didn’t just tip. They slammed down hard on the electric side and haven’t budged since.

The brutal math is this: China went from 7% EV share in 2020 to majority control in just five years. Five years. Countries have taken longer to agree on what color to paint a bridge.

Year	NEV Market Share	Key Milestone
2020	6%	Early adopter phase
2021	~13%	Policy acceleration
2022	~27%	Subsidy phase-out begins
2023	~35%	Price parity achieved
2024	47%	July crossover month
2025 H1	50.1%	Majority threshold crossed

ICE’s Peak is in the Rearview

Here’s the fact everyone missed while they were arguing about whether EVs were “ready”: ICE car sales in China peaked in 2017. Everything since has been a long, slow retreat that suddenly became a rout.

Between 2017 and 2024, domestic ICE sales collapsed by 48%. Not declined. Collapsed. In 2024 alone, ICE sales dropped 17.1% year over year, marking the seventh consecutive year of contraction. Meanwhile, NEV sales exploded by 14.5 times over the same period.

This isn’t a temporary dip caused by economic uncertainty or supply chain hiccups. This is the end of an empire, happening in real time, documented month by month in sales data that reads like an obituary for the combustion engine.

Who’s Actually Winning This Revolution

The shock isn’t just that EVs took over. It’s who is dominating. Forget everything you thought you knew about which brands sell cars.

The New Champions You’ve Never Heard Of

Rank	Model	Sales (H1 2025)	The Twist
1	Geely Geome Xingyuan	205,091	Launched late 2024, instantly became #1
2	BYD Seagull	174,912	Affordable champion for the masses
3	Tesla Model Y	171,491	Only Western survivor in top 5
4	Wuling Mini	170,632	The people’s EV, barely costs more than a scooter
5	Xiaomi SU7	155,692	A smartphone maker. Fifth place.

Read that last line again. Xiaomi, the company that made your earbuds, jumped into cars and instantly became a top-5 player. Not after years of R&D and careful market entry. After months. They announced the car, people lost their minds, and now it’s outselling brands that have been building vehicles since your grandparents were young.

The Speed of Disruption

BYD commanded 34.1% of the NEV market in 2024, selling 3.72 million units. To put that in perspective, BYD alone sold more EVs than the entire United States market. The company went from battery supplier to China’s largest-volume car manufacturer, surpassing Volkswagen in a market VW had dominated for decades.

Domestic brands now control nearly 70% of the total passenger vehicle market. Four years ago, foreign brands held 64% market share. The pendulum didn’t just swing. It flew off the chain.

Meanwhile, legacy brands like VW and Toyota are watching their joint-venture ICE models pile up on dealer lots, unsold and unwanted, like last season’s fashion in a clearance bin that nobody’s browsing.

How Did This Happen So Insanely Fast?

Here’s where we answer the question burning in your mind: how does an entire country flip from gas to electric in what feels like 24 months?

The Perfect Storm of Forces

In China, EVs aren’t just competitive with ICE cars. They’re often cheaper than comparable gas models. By 2024, two-thirds of all electric car models sold in China were priced lower than the average ICE vehicle in their segment. In 2018, fewer than 10% were cheaper. That’s the real tipping point. When a feature-loaded electric crossover costs less than a bare-bones gas sedan, the decision stops being about values or virtue and starts being about basic math.

Between 2009 and 2023, an estimated $230 billion flowed into the industry. Subsidies that once reached ¥60,000 per vehicle. Purchase tax exemptions extended through 2027. Free license plates in megacities where getting an ICE plate could cost $12,000 or take years. But here’s the twist nobody talks about: the real story is what happened after subsidies ended in 2022. Demand kept climbing. The government built the runway, but consumer desire is what’s keeping the plane in the air now.

This wasn’t just a fuel switch. This was a tech leap. Like going from flip phones to smartphones. Local brands like BYD and Geely didn’t copy Tesla. They innovated past it. Giant touchscreens that make an iPad look quaint. Over-the-air updates that add features while you sleep. Software-defined vehicles that feel like they’re from a decade ahead. Traditional automakers were still perfecting the internal combustion engine while Chinese brands were reinventing what a car could be.

The Snowball Effect Nobody Saw Coming

Think of demand like a snowball rolling downhill. More EVs sold meant battery factories scaled up. Scaled-up factories meant lower battery costs. Lower costs meant cheaper cars. Cheaper cars meant more buyers. More buyers meant more charging stations. More charging stations meant less range anxiety. Less anxiety meant more buyers. Around and around it goes, faster and faster, until the old world is buried under an avalanche of lithium and progress.

Battery pack prices in China fell by 30% in 2024 alone. That rate of decline is two to three times faster than in Europe or the United States. China’s commanding position in the global battery supply chain and its widespread adoption of lower-cost Lithium Iron Phosphate battery chemistry created a cost advantage nobody else could match. It’s not just that they’re ahead. It’s that the gap is widening.

Why Everyday People Ditched Gas

This is the human part. Strip away the policy wonk-speak and ask: why is a family in Shanghai choosing an EV?

Finally, It’s Better and Cheaper

Imagine this: you walk into a showroom and the electric model has features that make the gas version look like it rolled in from 2010. Screens bigger than your TV at home. Apps that integrate with your entire digital life. Voice controls that actually understand you. Instant acceleration that pins you to your seat. And then the salesperson tells you it costs less than the gas model sitting next to it. What would you choose?

The total cost truth is even more compelling. Electricity in China is cheaper and more price-stable than gasoline. Fewer moving parts mean maintenance costs plummet. No oil changes. No transmission repairs. No timing belt replacements. Over five years, the savings stack up like compound interest. One study found that operating an EV costs about 60% less than an equivalent ICE vehicle when you factor in energy and maintenance.

The price war has created deals that feel endless. When manufacturers are fighting for market share this aggressively, the consumer wins. Hard.

The Status Symbol Flipped

Here’s the cultural earthquake nobody predicted: driving a new, smart EV is now cooler than rolling up in an old-guard German luxury brand. Gas cars suddenly became “legacy tech.” The thing your parents drove. The slower, dirtier, more expensive option.

In smog-choked cities like Beijing and Chengdu, going electric isn’t just smart economics. It’s a statement. It’s the quiet thrill of zero tailpipe drama when you’re stuck in traffic and the air quality index is reading “hazardous.” It’s being part of the future instead of clinging to the past.

A 2025 McKinsey survey found that over 80% of Chinese consumers plan for their next vehicle to be electric. Another study put that figure at 97%. These aren’t numbers driven by subsidies or regulations anymore. These are people who want what comes next.

The Brutal Reality for Legacy Brands

And let’s get real about the other side of this story. This surge isn’t all victory laps. It’s heartbreaking for people whose lives revolved around the old way.

The Tale of Two Realities

While BYD sold 3.72 million units in 2024, up 36.8% year over year, Japanese brands collectively saw their sales drop 18.9% in early 2025. The steepest decline among all manufacturer groups. Volkswagen, once the undisputed king of the Chinese market, has been dethroned and is now scrambling with an expensive “In China, for China” strategy that involves building dedicated local platforms and partnering with Chinese startup XPeng just to access modern electrical architecture.

Legacy brands are stuck between two worlds. Their ICE portfolios are dying faster than anyone forecasted, but their EV pivots feel rushed and compromised. Buyers can smell panic-mode electrification from a mile away. They want true believers who understand electric from the ground up, not converts scrambling to catch up with badge-engineered compliance cars.

Tesla, despite pioneering the premium EV market in China with its Shanghai Gigafactory, now holds just 4.9% of the NEV market. It’s being squeezed by premium domestic brands like NIO on one side and high-volume value players like BYD on the other. Even the disruptor is getting disrupted.

The Human Cost Nobody Talks About

Thousands of workers in ICE engine plants are facing layoffs. Entire supplier networks built around pistons and crankshafts and exhaust systems are watching their order books thin out. There’s that quiet fear of skills going obsolete overnight. Of being the generation that knew how to rebuild a carburetor but never learned how to diagnose a battery management system.

Nothing beats the rumble of a V8 at full throttle. The mechanical symphony of a perfectly tuned engine. We get it. The nostalgia is real and the loss is genuine.

But what if silence means progress? The good news is that the transition, while messy, isn’t hopeless. Retraining programs are turning wrench-turners into battery technicians. EV maintenance still requires skilled hands, just different skills. The auto industry isn’t dying. It’s transforming. And people can transform with it if given the chance and the support.

What Happens Next: The 2028 Endgame

Look forward with me for a moment. The data tells a story that’s bold and evidence-based, one that makes you feel like an insider who knows what’s coming.

The Year ICE “Dies” in China

Industry analysts project 2028 as the year the internal combustion engine effectively dies as a mainstream choice in China. Not banned. Not illegal. Just irrelevant. When NEV market share hits 80% to 90%, as multiple forecasts predict for 2030, the few years before that threshold will see ICE sales become so marginal that automakers will stop investing in new models entirely.

The International Energy Agency projects approximately 80% EV sales share by 2030. BloombergNEF sees a path to 65% of the total vehicle fleet being electric by then. The Rocky Mountain Institute goes further, forecasting 90% of new sales. The numbers vary slightly, but the consensus is overwhelming: by the end of this decade, buying a new gas car in China will be like buying a DVD player in 2024. Technically possible, but why would you?

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers forecasts around 16 million NEV sales in 2025. If that holds, every single month will drive another nail into the ICE coffin.

The Dominoes That Will Fall

As ICE production shrinks, suppliers of ICE-specific parts will face a death spiral. Economies of scale will vanish. Prices will rise. Availability will decline. Getting your gas car repaired in 2030 might require ordering parts from overseas or hunting through salvage yards. It gets harder and more expensive every year.

BEV penetration soars, used ICE cars are becoming stranded assets. Who wants to buy a used gas car when electric is the default? Your gas car’s value is dropping in real time, faster than normal depreciation. The secondary market for ICE vehicles is headed for a collapse that will catch millions of owners off guard.

BEVs become the default. The normal car. The car everyone’s kids learn to drive on. ICEs become what your parents drove. A relic. A curiosity. The psychological shift completes what the economic shift started, and the transition becomes self-perpetuating and irreversible.

The Global Ripples Heading Your Way

Curious how this plays out beyond the Great Wall? It’s already washing up on your doorstep.

The Tsunami That’s Already on Shore

Those super-advanced, low-cost Chinese EVs dominating their home market? They’re already being sold in Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Mexico. BYD just opened showrooms in Germany. Nio is expanding across Scandinavia. This is what true, global competition looks like, and legacy Western automakers are terrified.

China’s share of the global EV market hit 76% in recent analyses. That’s not market participation. That’s market domination. Chinese brands are projected to capture a third of the global car market by 2030. Made-in-China vehicle exports reached a record 5.86 million units in 2024.

The implications are uncomfortable and unavoidable. Western auto jobs are under threat as Chinese brands expand. The climate benefits are undeniable, but the sovereignty question looms large. Do we want the cars of the future controlled by companies headquartered in Beijing the way the cars of the past were controlled by companies in Detroit and Stuttgart?

What It Means for Your Next Car

If you’re in China, the math is done. The decision has been made for you by millions of your neighbors. Electric is the path forward, and the only question is which brand and which features.

If you’re in the US or Europe, watch your local EV prices monthly, not yearly. The tipping point arrives faster than anyone predicts. Norway crossed 50% in 2020 and hit 90% by 2024. Four years. China took five. The pattern is clear: once the snowball starts rolling downhill, it accelerates.

Think about your next car hunt: EVs are dropping below ¥100,000 in China, roughly $15,000. When does that price floor hit your market? When Chinese automakers decide to export aggressively, probably. And that day is coming sooner than you think.

Your Playbook: Making the Shift Without the Drama

Frustrated yet fired up? Good. Let’s flip that into fuel. Here’s how to navigate this without losing your mind or your money.

The First-Order Decisions Only

Are you doing city hops, family hauls, or long-road living? Match the powertrain to your actual life, not to abstract scenarios. BEV for daily driving within 200 miles of home. PHEV if your charging access is shaky today but you want to start the transition.

Compare the drive-home price and the five-year running costs. Don’t get spun by endless promo cycles and cashback gimmicks. Focus on total cost of ownership. Electricity costs. Maintenance costs. Resale value. Insurance. Add it all up and see which number is smaller.

Match your shortlist to the latest monthly NEV share trends in your market. If 60% of new cars where you live are electric, your “safe” ICE choice might actually be the riskiest bet for resale value and long-term support.

The Questions You’re Whispering

Question	The Real Answer	The One Stat That Matters
“Is this just subsidies propping up sales?”	No. Cost curves and scale economies now do the heavy lifting. Demand kept climbing after subsidies ended.	EVs hit price parity and are often cheaper without any subsidies.
“Will the grid cope with millions of EVs charging?”	Look at China’s utilization data, not doomsday headlines. They’re managing 17 million charging facilities.	Charging infrastructure meets the moment when properly planned.
“What about resale risk?”	Follows tech cadence. Buy on value, not hype cycles.	Used ICE values are cratering faster than used EV values in mature markets.

Conclusion: You’re Not Just Watching History. You’re Living It.

We went from “is this real?” to “it’s already here.” Let that sink in for a moment.

China proved that when price, performance, and policy align, consumers flip seemingly overnight. ICE didn’t die because it was bad. It died because something better got cheaper, faster, and frankly, cooler. The combustion engine served us well for over a century, but every technology has its time, and that time has passed in the world’s largest auto market.

You’ve just witnessed the numbers behind the fastest technology transition in automotive history. From that initial jolt of July 2024’s 50/50 crossover to the fierce competition among new EV champions to the inevitable 2028 destination where electric is simply the way things are. This isn’t speculation. This is documented reality unfolding in monthly sales reports.

The next time you see a car from a brand you don’t recognize, BYD, Nio, XPeng, Geely, Xiaomi, don’t just see a car. See the new standard. That’s your world now, whether you’re in Shanghai or Sydney or Stockholm. The brands that will define the next automotive era are already here, already winning, already reshaping what we expect from personal transportation.

Remember that July 2024 moment when gasoline lost in China? That wasn’t the end of a story. That was the preview for everywhere else. The transition isn’t a vague future possibility we’ll deal with someday. It’s a present-day reality that moved faster than anyone thought possible. We all thought we had a decade to get used to this idea. China just proved it can happen in about 24 months. The road already turned. The only question is whether you’re ready when your city’s moment arrives.

ICE vs China EV Sales (FAQs)