IN the race to reduce carbon emissions, countries from the US to New Zealand are doling out incentives to spur electric-vehicle sales—tactics China used for years as it turned into the biggest EV market on Earth.
Including plug-in hybrids, China’s clean-car sales hit 5.67 million in 2022, more than half of all global deliveries. The country will account for about 60 percent of the world’s 14.1 million new passenger EV sales this year, BloombergNEF predicts. Sufficient infrastructure obviously helps with EV adoption. China, which has the largest charging network in the world, added 649,000 public chargers in 2022 alone, which is more than 70 percent of all installations done globally that year.
Tax breaks: A standard 10 percent tax levy has been waived for clean-car purchases under 300,000 yuan until 2025, and will return at 5 percent for 2026 and 2027. The tax break, in place since 2014, is estimated to amount to 835 billion yuan by the end of 2027. In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year, includes $270 billion in tax incentives for EV purchases and clean manufacturing and nearly $12 billion in loans to clean-energy projects.