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by DiogenesKynikos 101 days ago
1/4-1/3 EVs is an underestimate for somewhere like Shenzhen (probably for Beijing too). It's going to be well over 50% there. And virtually all scooters will be electric.

You're right about the smoking, though. It's a massive problem.
1 comments
Markoff 101 days ago
it's definitely not underestimate for Beijing where I stayed for 3 weeks this summer, maybe you count PHEV as EVs, many of those cars which look like EVs are actually hybrids, only in late 2025 China reached 50% newly registered BEV+PHEV cars plus there are lots of previously registered cars and if we count only BEVs the percentage will be much smaller, actually I think 1/3 of BEV on the road is quite an overestimate from my side

are NEV common? sure. do BEV make majority of cars on the road? for sure not

there are basically none scooters, they use either (e)bikes or electric motorbikes/mopeds (these are not new, they used them en masse already 10 years ago)

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DiogenesKynikos 100 days ago
Looking into this a bit more, it seems that 20% of the total number of registered vehicles in Beijing are NEV vehicles, but that a far larger percentage of cars on the road at any given moment are NEVs. That's because almost all taxis (and buses) are NEVs.

By the way, NEVs might have only reached 50% of new registrations across all of China in late 2025, but in Tier-1 cities, it has been far higher than 50% for years. It's extremely difficult to even get a license plate for an ICE car in major Chinese cities. You have to enter a lottery, with a very low chance of winning. Even if you do get a license plate, you're banned from driving on one weekday every week.

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Markoff 100 days ago
It's extremely difficult even to get NEV license plate, trust me I talked with many of those taxi drivers who drove me every single day during those 3 weeks about how much they paid for car, how long it took to register it. The benefit of NEV passed years ago already, even for NEV license plate you have to wait years.
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DiogenesKynikos 99 days ago
It's still massively easier to get a license plate for a NEV than for an ICE car.

Beyond that, I think the issue with long wait times for NEV license plates is unique to Beijing.

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