Workers are busy at a production line of new-energy vehicles (NEVs) in Jinhua, East China's Zhejiang Province on July 2, 2024. The volume of NEV production is rising driven by growing demand. Zhejiang is striving to produce more than 1.2 million NEVs annually, or more than 60 percent of the province's total automobile production, by 2025, and its NEV output will account for about 10 percent of the country's total. Photo: VCG

Chinese automaker BYD delivered its 10-millionth new-energy vehicle (NEV) on Monday, marking the first time any automaker worldwide has achieved this milestone, the company announced on Monday.

On Monday, BYD celebrated its 30th anniversary and held a launch event for the 10 millionth NEV that rolled off the assembly line in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province.

At the event, BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu handed over the 10-millionth NEV to Feng Ji, producer of the well-known video game "Black Myth: Wukong," according to BYD statement seen on its WeChat account.

Wang gave a retrospect of BYD's past 30 years, transforming from a 20-person startup venture to a global corporation with nearly one million employees.

At present, BYD has become the first global automaker to achieve the milestone of assembling 10 million NEV units. It also signifies that China has taken a solid step from being a major automobile consumption country to becoming a leading automobile manufacturer, ushering in a new phase of high-quality development for the Chinese auto industry, BYD said in the WeChat statement.

BYD took 15 years to reach its first 5 million NEVs but accomplished the second 5 million in just 15 months. This reaffirms BYD's commitment to sticking to the new energy path and persisting in technological innovation as the correct approach for development, said the company.

BYD's rapid growth mirrors the broader growth of China's NEV industry. China's NEV output in 2024 exceeded 10 million units last week, becoming the first country to achieve this milestone within a single year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The benchmark was reached on Thursday morning, surpassing the full-year output of 9.59 million NEVs in 2023, according to data from industry group China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

China started tracking NEV sales and output in 2013, with 18,000 NEVs produced that year. By 2018, NEV output reached 1 million, and it exceeded 5 million units in 2022.

Experts predict China's total NEV output will surpass 12 million units by the end of this year, CCTV reported.

China's NEV sales have also kept expanding. In the first 10 months of 2024, NEV sales reached 9.75 million units, marking a year-on-year increase of 33.9 percent, according to CAAM data.

Global Times