China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) estimates April’s penetration rate of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in the domestic car market to be about 31.8%.

Retail sales volume of new energy passenger cars is expected to be about 500,000 units, an on-year increase of 77.3% and an on-month decline of 8.4%

Kallanish notices that in April, the on-month decline percentage of NEV sales is greater than that of conventional cars, as the overall passenger car sales volume declined less than 2% during the same period. 

According to CPCA, most of the Chinese "new force" brands posted monthly growth in terms of sales volume, despite the diminishing trend of the vehicle price reductions. The only exception was NIO, which delivered a total of 6,658 units of new cars last month – up 31.2% on-year and 35.8% down on-month. In January-April, the EV maker delivered 37,699 new cars, an on-year increase of 22.2%. 

Meanwhile, Li Auto achieved a single-month record high again. Its April’s sales surged 516.3% on-year to 25,681 units. That’s also a 23% on-month increase.

Li Auto’s chairman and ceo Li Xiang explains deliveries of L7 exceeded 10,000 units in its first delivery month. He describes the new model as “one of the top choices for family-use luxury five-seater sports utility vehicle … It is also the first five-seater SUV model of a Chinese brand that reached over 10,000 units of single-month delivery with the starting price being over CNY 300,000 ($43,476).”