An NEV charging station in Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi Province Photo: VCG

China is gearing up to tackle customers' complaints and recalls of new-energy vehicles (NEV) amid booming ownership and consumers' rising expectations for better NEVs.

China received more customers' complaints regarding new-energy vehicles (NEVs) in 2022, a rise of 62.84 percent year-on-year to 16,000 cases, data released by the State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) on Tuesday showed. 

Issues regarding contract service, quality and false advertising dominated the rising complaints, the SAMR said. 

Experts said this reflected booming ownership and consumers' rising expectations for better NEVs.

This data came out just days after the SAMR released another report suggesting the numbers of recalled NEVs in 2022 reached a historic high. There were at least 47 recalls involving 1.21 million NEVs, making up 27 percent of the total recalled cars, a year-on-year increase of 31.5 percent.

Among the 4,300 NEV-related cases, issues reflecting power batteries, motors and electronic control systems accounted for 41.9 percent of the defect reports, according to the SAMR.

China is the largest market for and producer of NEVs. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that in 2022, more than 7.06 million NEVs were produced and over 6.89 million units were sold in China, both up more than 90 percent year-on-year.

China led the world in terms of production and sales for the eighth consecutive year.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the rising number of complaints and recalls of NEVs were natural market responses, which mirrored the fact that market acceptance and ownership of NEVs are rising.

Both complaints and recalls were maintained at a reasonable level, the expert said.

As more NEVs enter the market, consumers have higher expectations and requirements, which also explained why the complaints rose, Cui said.

As a new type of product, NEVs still have a lot of technical areas to be improved, and this aspect will get better and better with the continuous improvement of the product, Cui said.

In responding to the need for an industry upgrade, the SAMR pledged to put more efforts into supervision, including improving national unified management of NEV recalls and strengthening the guidance and supervision of local consumer product recall work.