China's new energy vehicle (NEV) market went through two structural shifts at once in 2025. As the domestic price war cooled, exports doubled. This signals a move from the familiar image of a "domestic war of attrition" toward an export-led growth phase.
According to CAAM (China Association of Automobile Manufacturers), 2025 NEV sales reached 16.49 million units, up 28.2% year-on-year. On a CPCA (China Passenger Car Association) retail basis, sales were about 12.81 million, up 17.6%. The domestic market is maturing yet still holding double-digit growth.
A New Phase: Exports Double
The biggest change is in exports. China's 2025 NEV exports doubled year-on-year to 2.62 million units. Chinese-brand NEV exports alone reached 2.04 million, up 139%, and NEVs made up 49.5% of those brands' total exports. Nearly half of finished-vehicle exports are now NEVs.
The driver is BYD. In 2025 it sold about 4.6 million NEVs, of which roughly 2.26 million were BEVs. It surpassed Tesla in annual BEV sales for the first time, becoming the world's largest BEV seller. Domestic brands' overall retail share was 65%, up 4.8 points year-on-year.
The Price War "Cools"
The view of "China EVs' endless price war" is also tempered by the 2025 data. From January to July, the number of discounted models was 106, down from 147 in the same period of 2024. The average discount over that span was about CNY 21,000. The drop in discounted models can be read as a sign that makers are pivoting from attrition toward profitability.
The cooling of the price war is consistent with securing export capacity. Rather than draining resources in domestic overcompetition, makers are pursuing added value in overseas markets — including a tariff-walled Europe — a strategic shift behind the move.
The EU's Definitive Countervailing Duties and the "Bypass" Dynamic
Against expanding exports, the EU is countering on trade. From 30 October 2024, the EU applied definitive countervailing duties on Chinese-made BEVs. These are added on top of the existing 10% import tariff, with the following rates by major company.
Individual rates
BYD 17.0%, Geely 18.8%, SAIC 35.3%. Producers that cooperated but were not sampled face a weighted-average 20.8%. All are added on top of the 10% base tariff.
Non-cooperating firms
Producers that did not cooperate face 37.6%. The highest rate sharply constrains their price competitiveness in the EU market.
Bypass behavior
Chinese makers are trying to bypass the duties via local production in Europe and technology licensing or joint ventures with Western OEMs. The result is not full decoupling but deepening interdependence.
What emerges here is that the tariffs do not unilaterally stop Chinese NEVs from entering Europe; they prompt a reshuffling of production location and supply chains. The more localized production and battery technology licensing advance, the stronger the interdependence between Western brands and Chinese technology. Read together with the US-side regulation, the market is splitting into regulated and growth blocs while staying entangled at the technology and components layer.
The US regulatory side is covered in US Connected-Vehicle Rule: Supply-Chain Realignment Issues, and the global bifurcation in Global EV Sales 2026: A Bifurcating Market.
Reference FactCards
> Source: China government official (gov.cn / CAAM-reported January–October 2025 output, sales, and exports), CAAM (full-year 2025 NEV sales 16.49 million), CPCA (retail 12.81 million), European Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2754 (definitive countervailing duty rates). FactCards are unified on primary/official sources (gov.cn / European Commission); full-year figures in the text are CAAM-reported.