China Produced & Sold Over 30 Million Vehicles in 2024

2024 saw the Chinese automotive industry producing over 30 million vehicles, with 5.859 million of them going to the export market.

It is no secret that the Chinese automotive industry is serious business, but not many people realise how big the whole industry really is. To give you some context, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) just announced that the Great Wall nation produced a total of 31.282 million vehicles in 2024—a 3.7% increase over the previous year.

What’s more impressive is that the sales volume has exceeded the production numbers, with a total of 31.436 million vehicles being sold last year. This impressive feat marks a 4.5% increase in sales volume over the previous year. Meanwhile, export volume marks the biggest increase for 2024, with 5.859 million were exported by China last year, or a healthy 19.3% increase from 2023.

A further breakdown in these numbers shows that new energy vehicles (NEVs) make up a healthy chunk of both the production and sales volumes at 12.888 million and 12.866 million, respectively. This also marks an increase of 34.4% and 35.5% year-on-year volume for NEV production and sales, while accounting for 40.9% of the total NEV sales last year.

From the total NEVs sold in 2024, 60% of them were coming from battery electric vehicles (BEVs), which is down by 10.4% from 2023, while plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) accounted for 40%, up by 10.4% from the previous year.

As for the total export volume in 2024, 4.955 million of them were passenger cars, while the remaining 904,000 consisted of commercial vehicles, both of which represented a year-on-year increase of 19.7% and 17.5%, respectively. Not to forget, the export volume for NEVs was at 1.284 million units—an increase of 6.7% over the previous year.

According to CarNewsChina, Chery has retained its position as the top vehicle exporter in 2024, with the Wuhu-based marque shipping out a total of 1.144 million vehicles. Trailing Chery closely at second place was SAIC Motor at 929,000 units, followed by Changan and Geely at 536,000 and 532,000 units, respectively. In terms of growth, however, renowned NEV brand BYD has recorded the highest export volume growth of 71.8% with 433,000 units exported in 2024.

Looking forward, CAAM predicts that the Chinese automotive industry will continue its growth in 2025, with the annual automobile production and sales possibly reaching 32.9 million units. Furthermore, the production and sales of NEVs are expected to reach 16 million units, while export volume is expected to reach 6.2 million units.