China’s transport electrification has entered a stage that is hard to explain with a single adoption curve. City buses have moved beyond new deployments and into a replacement market in which older electric buses are swapped for new ones, EV outlet Cleantechnica reported on Oct. 17 local time.
City buses are the segment where electrification has reached saturation first. Almost all new urban buses in China are electric. Procurement has also shifted from replacing diesel buses with battery electric buses to deciding which new electric buses will replace those introduced during the first wave of electrification. The International Energy Agency estimated that about 70 percent of more than 680,000 electric buses in China were deployed before 2020.
China’s 2025 equipment renewal programme supported the replacement of new-energy city buses and full replacement of drive batteries, and the programme is continuing in 2026. The role of policy has also changed. In a market where electric drivetrains are already common, the emphasis has moved from first adoption to supporting replacement demand.
Passenger cars have already entered the mainstream stage. In China’s new passenger-car sales in 2025, electric vehicles accounted for slightly more than half, and the number of electric models available by year-end was close to 700. The International Energy Agency estimated that about 70 percent of battery electric vehicles sold in China were cheaper than comparable internal combustion engine cars even before subsidies.
Heavy trucks have a lower sales share than passenger cars, but their growth is faster. Electric heavy trucks accounted for about 29 percent of sales in China in 2025, about double the level in 2024. Uptake has been most notable at ports, mines, steel mills and industrial logistics sites. Routes are relatively fixed, and charging or battery swapping can be operated to match work flows.
Electrification is progressing more slowly for coach buses. In China’s coach-bus sales in 2025, battery electric vehicles accounted for about 10 percent. China had more than 50,000 km of high-speed rail by end-2025, and annual rail ridership was more than 4.5 billion. That means rail has already absorbed part of long-distance passenger demand.
China previously used statistics with overlapping categories, such as for new-energy buses, and the International Energy Agency has revised its classifications as data have been refined. The broad trend is clear. Urban buses saturated first, passenger cars became mainstream, heavy trucks are rising quickly, and coach buses have a relatively low level of electrification.
