Yang Yunfei

1017800664@qq.com

IN an article published by Forbes.com Feb. 16, 2021, U.S. journalist Brooke Crothers applauded Shenzhen’s all-electric public transit fleet.

“Shenzhen is a city that has reached a future that the U.S. can only dream about. The city has made a wholesale conversion to electric transportation, with 16,000 electric buses and 22,000 electric taxis,” Crothers wrote.

“Green transportation” has become a prominent feature of Shenzhen, making it a city widely known for its aggressive adoption of electric vehicles in its public transport systems.

Electric buses

and taxis

In 2017, Shenzhen became the world’s first megacity to electrify its entire bus fleet of 16,359, according to the local transportation commission.

In 2018, the city became the world’s largest city to use pure electric taxis, switching almost all of its 22,000 taxis to electric. By the end of 2020, Shenzhen once again led the nation to fully electrify its ride-hailing services.

As per Shenzhen Bus Group, the city’s largest and oldest public transport operator, its fully electric bus fleet has enabled the group to cut down its annual carbon dioxide emissions by 440,000 tons, reduce 217,900 liters of oil wastewater, save 160 million liters of fuel, and conserve 150,000 tons of standard coal each year.

Starting from scratch

Dubbed as China’s Silicon Valley, Shenzhen has long been a testing ground for everything new — economic reform, policy shift and tech innovation.

As Shenzhen didn’t have a traditional auto industry, the city’s dream to build itself into a city of new energy vehicles (NEVs) started from scratch.

In June 2003, Shenzhen decided to make inroads into the automotive industry. Realizing that it could never compete against China’s traditional automobile manufacturing hubs in internal combustion engine innovations, Shenzhen determined to break away from the established technology and invest in a completely new territory: cars powered entirely by batteries.

In 2009, Shenzhen was chosen as one of the 13 cities to pilot a national NEV program.

On Feb. 17, 2012, Shenzhen Development and Reform Commission, the local economic planner, announced that the city will build an NEV industry base in Pingshan, which has helped the district lure over 300 firms to build a mature NEV ecosystem led by electric vehicle juggernaut BYD.     (Continued on P2)

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NEV powerhouse

In a short span of time, Shenzhen has emerged as a powerhouse in the NEV market with a very robust ecosystem throughout the entire industry supply chain from upstream to downstream.

According to the local statistics bureau, the production of NEVs and charging piles increased 163.5% and 40.6% year on year, respectively, from January to May this year.

According to financial commentator Liu Xiaobo, the high growth of the new energy industry is an important factor driving Shenzhen’s economy, allowing the city to rapidly emerge as a major auto manufacturing hub in the country.

Shenzhen has seen an explosive increase in NEV ownership over the past three years. NEVs on Shenzhen’s roads jumped to 740,000 units at the end of 2022 and the number is expected to increase to 1.3 million by 2025, according to the local industry and information technology bureau.

By comparison, registrations of NEVs hit 756,534 units in the U.S., one of the world’s largest auto markets, in 2022, an increase of 57% from a year ago, according to financial data firm Experian.

Robust NEV exports

Shenzhen’s exports of electric vehicles are gaining steam and showing signs of acceleration, the latest data from Shenzhen Customs showed.

In the first quarter of the year, Shenzhen exported 5.06 billion yuan (US$706 million)worth of passenger electric vehicles, a sharp increase of 1,380% year on year.

“As domestic new energy vehicle companies such as BYD continue to boost their share in the world market, exports of NEVs from Shenzhen are bound to sustain high growth in the future,” Chen Jia, a researcher with Renmin University of China, said.

Long list of players

According to Hurun China New Energy Cities 2023 unveiled by Hurun Research Insititute in June, Shenzhen retained its title as China’s top city in terms of new energy industry concentration level, followed by Shanghai.

“Shenzhen has BYD and Shanghai has Tesla. NEVs are driving the whole industry supply chain, so the contribution of enterprises like Tesla and BYD to each city is far more than just car production,” Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman of Hurun, said.

Shenzhen is now home to 24,000 new energy and digital energy companies and over 20 listed companies in the charging pile sector.

Led by Shenzhen’s homegrown market leader BYD, these companies have achieved national leadership in core NEV technologies.

NEV leader BYD

BYD, which started by making batteries, has grown to become the world’s hottest maker of electric vehicles. It started making cars in 2003 and in 2022 it dropped its lineup of gas-powered vehicles to focus only on battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids.

The world’s first fully vertically integrated electric vehicle maker overtook Tesla to become the world’s top selling NEV maker with 1.87 million deliveries in 2022, compared with 1.3 million for Tesla.

The firm is now embarking on a rapid global expansion push and has made inroads into overseas markets starting with Norway in 2021, and now including Australia, Britain, Brazil, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan, Mexico and Singapore.

Supercharging

stations

Shenzhen’s high penetration of NEVs has spawned the rapid development of charging infrastructure.

The city has promised to install 833,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2025. The latest official figures show that Shenzhen had 190,000 charging piles as of the end of June, becoming one of the Chinese cities with the largest electric vehicle charging network.

“With more chargers, there’s less range anxiety. More drivers are willing to switch to NEVs,” said Zhu Guichuan, a BYD car owner. “However, we still need to remember that charging takes much longer than refilling a gas tank. That’s a significant barrier to the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption,” he said. Long queues during peak hours, unreliable software or hardware, or even finding a charging spot occupied by a petrol-powered vehicle also proved to be concerns for electric vehicle drivers, he added.