By Sam Li and Lewis Jackson
BEIJING (Reuters) -Tianyu Jiang took a 2,000-km (1,200-mile) road trip this month during China’s national holiday week, driving in his electric vehicle from the southwestern Sichuan basin to Beijing for the first time.
“I used to drive a petrol car and had never taken an EV for such a big trip, but long-distance driving for an EV doesn’t feel like a problem anymore,” Jiang said.
He is among tens of millions of Chinese increasingly taking to EV vehicles, who benefited from expanded charging infrastructure to reverse the usual boom in gasoline use during the October holiday known as “Golden Week”.
Far from a peak, China’s gasoline demand is estimated to have fallen 9% in October on the year to 12.5 million tons, with average daily use roughly flat with September, according to Chinese consultancy Sublime China Information (SCI).
The sagging holiday demand is symptomatic of the broader decline in Chinese fuel use stemming from wider EV adoption, heralding the approaching end of its decades-long role as the main driving force of new global oil demand.
Gasoline consumption in the world’s biggest importer of crude peaked in 2023 and the research unit of state oil company Sinopec expects demand to fall more than 4% this year from 2024.
During the first nine months of the year, EVs and hybrids made up almost half of all new car sales.
A fifth of the 63.5 million car trips during the eight-day holiday break were in electric or hybrid vehicles, the transport ministry says.
Daily use of electricity by charging stations, a proxy for EV use, rose 45.73% during Golden Week this year, versus 2024.
EV adoption has benefited from China’s push to build charging infrastructure, with some 18 million charging ports by the end of September, up 54.5% on the year.
“During travel peaks, both charging and refuelling mean waiting,” said Jiang. “If you really need a charge, exit the highway and you will find charging stations within 10 km (6 miles), and it’s cheap.”
(Reporting by Sam Li and Lewis Jackson in Beijing; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Comments