Range-extended vehicles are caught in a double squeeze: not only are pure electric vehicles selling well, but fuel-powered vehicles are also "recovering".
NIO and Li Auto have successively released their third - quarter financial reports. These two reports are a concentrated manifestation of the structural adjustment in the domestic new energy vehicle market this year.
These two reports illustrate a problem: Range - extended vehicles with small - capacity battery packs have completely lost consumers' favor.
In October this year, Li Auto only delivered 31,767 vehicles. In contrast, NIO achieved a monthly delivery of over 40,000 vehicles for the first time in October this year. And according to NIO's delivery guidance, the average monthly delivery of NIO in the fourth quarter of this year will also exceed 40,000 vehicles. Li Auto forms a sharp contrast, with a rather pessimistic outlook. By the end of November, Li Auto still failed to stop the decline.
Behind the comparison between the two, there is also a set of micro - data changes. Since June this year, the sales of domestic fuel - powered vehicles have resumed growth and have continued to grow for four consecutive months. In October, the growth momentum of fuel - powered vehicle sales slowed down, with a month - on - month slight increase of 0.4% but a year - on - year decrease of 0.9%.
Starting from 2026, the support policy for exempting new energy vehicles from purchase tax will officially come to an end. The purchase tax rate for new energy vehicles is half of that for fuel - powered vehicles. The impact of the policy change has already emerged. Entering 2026, with the implementation of the policy and changes in consumer demand, the reshuffle of the market will enter an accelerated stage.
01
BEVs on the rise, range - extended vehicles on the decline
Since the beginning of this year, almost all the "9" - series models launched on the market have adopted hybrid power (including range - extended and plug - in hybrid) forms, such as IM LS9, Voyah Taishan, XPENG X9, Geely Galaxy M9, ZEEKR 9X, and Leapmotor D19.
There is only one exception, which is the NIO ET9, which is only available in a pure - electric form. Among the "9" - series models adopting hybrid power forms, except for the Geely Galaxy M9, the rest of the models also have one thing in common: they are equipped with large batteries, and their CLTC pure - electric range can reach 300 km or even over 400 km. Leapmotor D19 has even pulled the pure - electric range of range - extended vehicles to over 500 km with its super - large 80.3 kWh battery comparable to that of pure - electric models.
On the day after the release of Leapmotor's D - platform technology and the debut of the D19, Zhu Jiangming, the chairman of Leapmotor, said in an interview: "Pure - electric vehicles will definitely be the largest - scale direction in the future, while range - extended vehicles are the choice for users with sufficient funds who pursue higher - configuration vehicles for a few travel scenarios. I've been saying this on many occasions in the past year."
The starting price of the newly launched XPENG X9 Super Range - Extended Edition is set at 309,800 yuan, 40,000 yuan lower than the pre - sale price and 50,000 yuan lower than the starting price of the first - generation XPENG X9 launched on January 1, 2024. He Xiaopeng, the chairman and CEO of XPENG, said in an interview: "The pricing of the XPENG X9 Super Range - Extended Edition is the result of a difficult internal decision. The core reason is that the trend of hybrid vehicles in the current Chinese market is downward while that of pure - electric vehicles is upward. The launch of the next - generation range - extended vehicle aims to cover users of fuel - powered vehicles, long - distance travelers, and people in areas with inconvenient charging."
During the era dominated by Li Auto and the "Jie" brand of HarmonyOS Smart Mobility, mainly in 2023 and 2024, small batteries were mainly used to provide a pure - electric experience, while large fuel tanks were used to relieve range anxiety. "Small battery + large fuel tank" was the mainstream configuration. However, after entering 2025, the situation reversed.
On the one hand, the charging infrastructure has been upgraded on a large scale. According to the statistics of the National Energy Administration, in 2024, the increment of domestic charging infrastructure was 4.222 million units, a year - on - year increase of 24.7%. As of the end of January this year, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure nationwide was 13.213 million units, a year - on - year increase of 49.1%. By the end of October this year, the number of charging facilities had increased to 18.645 million units. The increment in nine months exceeded that of the whole year of 2024, and the new - addition target for this year was achieved ahead of schedule.
The Power Department of the National Energy Administration mentioned in a report that by the end of 2024, except for Tibet and Qinghai, all other provinces in the country had achieved full coverage of charging stations in every county; 13 provinces had achieved full coverage of charging facilities in every township. This year, mainly with the implementation of the new energy vehicle promotion policy in rural areas, "ultra - fast combined" charging guns with a power of over 60 kilowatts have been installed in villages and towns to expand the coverage of charging infrastructure in rural and township areas.
Some new energy vehicle companies with self - built energy - replenishment networks are also promoting the "county - to - county connectivity" of charging facilities. For example, XPENG has completed the construction of county - to - county charging connectivity in the Greater Bay Area and is expected to achieve county - to - county connectivity in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai by the end of this year. NIO has been promoting the "county - to - county connectivity" planning of charging infrastructure since August 2024, completed the county - to - county charging connectivity this year, and will complete the coverage of battery - swapping stations in over 2,300 counties across 27 provincial - level administrative regions by the end of this year, and will cover other provincial - level administrative regions in 2026. To achieve this goal, Li Bin has visited regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet several times this year.
As of the end of November this year, Huawei and ZEEKR have respectively built over 1,000 ultra - fast charging stations, while Li Auto has built over 3,500.
On the other hand, the energy - consumption control technology of domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers has become increasingly excellent. For example, on the XPENG P7 +, the engineers of XPENG's electric drive system have increased the range by 78.6 km through improving the efficiency of the electric drive management system and the X - HP 3.0 intelligent thermal management technology. In the past two years, 800V high - voltage and 900V ultra - high - voltage platforms have been widely applied to models in the 200,000 - yuan price range, significantly improving the energy - replenishment speed and energy - consumption management efficiency.
In the first three quarters of this year, among the new - force automakers that only sell pure - electric vehicles, XPENG's sales increased by 190%, NIO's increased by 33.5%, ZEEKR's also increased by 51%, and Xiaomi Auto delivered over 260,000 vehicles, nearly twice that of 2024 (Xiaomi started large - scale delivery in April 2024, with a total of nine delivery months in fact). Continuing into October and November, pure - electric vehicle brands still maintained the growth in delivery.
In contrast, Li Auto only delivered 297,000 vehicles in the first three quarters of this year, about 44,000 vehicles less than the same period last year, a decline of nearly 13%. From October to November, the monthly delivery decline of Li Auto exceeded 30%. Especially in October, Li Auto's decline of over 38% was particularly prominent among the new - force automakers with positive performance.
Compared with 2024, the weak sales of range - extended vehicles and plug - in hybrid vehicles this year are an established fact. According to the statistics of the Passenger Car Association (PCA), since June this year, the proportion of range - extended vehicles in the overall new energy vehicle wholesale structure has declined for five consecutive months, and in October, the proportion was only 7.5%.
In the first three quarters of this year, the sales of pure - electric vehicles increased by 26% year - on - year, while the sales of range - extended vehicles and plug - in hybrid vehicles decreased by 12% and 7% respectively year - on - year. However, looking back at the past four years, the sales growth rates of range - extended vehicles were 218%, 130%, 154%, and 70.9% respectively.
At the third - quarter earnings conference call, Ma Donghui, the co - founder, executive director, and president of Li Auto, revealed that "the Li L series will undergo a major facelift in 2026." One of the upgrades is to increase the battery capacity and enhance the pure - electric range. This is closely related to the Range - Extended 3.0 system mentioned by Liu Liguo, the vice - president of Li Auto's vehicle powertrain, in a public speech at the end of March this year. One of the core upgrades of this system is to support 5C ultra - fast charging, which can add 300 km of range in 15 minutes of charging, indicating that the facelift of the Li L series will also increase the pure - electric range to over 300 km.
This upgrade is based on Li Auto's insight into user behavior. Their statistical data shows that the pure - electric driving proportion of Li Auto users exceeds 65%, and the electricity - using time is close to 90%, which means that users of range - extended vehicles prefer to use electricity for urban driving and gasoline for long - distance driving. As Zhu Jiangming and He Xiaopeng said, long - distance travel is still a minority and low - frequency scenario.
02
The short - term recovery of fuel - powered vehicles: hard to exit and difficult to regain market share
The data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) shows that by September this year, the domestic sales of traditional fuel - powered vehicles had achieved year - on - year growth for four consecutive months. Affected by this, in the first nine months of this year, the domestic sales of traditional fuel - powered vehicles increased by 1.7% compared with the same period last year. In 2024, the domestic sales of traditional fuel - powered vehicles declined by 17.7%.
The statistical data of the PCA comes from the retail market. In the first nine months of this year, the sales decline of traditional fuel - powered vehicles was only 4%, far lower than the 14% in 2024, and the market sentiment has obviously improved.
However, in the retail market, it is very difficult for traditional fuel - powered vehicles to return to the upward channel. According to the PCA's statistics, in 2024, the market share of domestic traditional fuel - powered vehicles was still 52.4%, and it declined to 49.9% in the first nine months of this year, which means that the market share of new energy vehicles has crossed the 50% mark. In October this year, the penetration rate of new energy vehicle sales (including wholesale and export) according to CAAM's statistics was 51.6%, and that according to the PCA's statistics (retail) reached 58.7%.
Cui Dongshu, the secretary - general of the PCA, believes that the recovery of traditional fuel - powered vehicle sales is due to two reasons. On the one hand, the vehicle trade - in policy covers fuel - powered vehicles from the first year of the implementation of the National IV emission standard (December 2022). On the other hand, the discount promotions of fuel - powered vehicles this year are more substantial, while the phasing - out of the purchase - tax subsidy for new energy vehicles and the uncertainty of the delivery cycle have jointly promoted the recovery of traditional fuel - powered vehicle sales.
Meanwhile, traditional fuel - powered vehicles are also catching up with new energy vehicles in terms of intelligence. For example, at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November this year, Dongfeng Nissan showcased the HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit solution and cooperated with Momenta in intelligent driving. FAW - Volkswagen's fuel - powered models have also introduced Zhuoyu Technology as a partner for intelligent driving. FAW Audi and SAIC Audi have joined the camp of Huawei's Qiankun Intelligence.
As the sales of traditional fuel - powered vehicles increase, the sales of pure - electric vehicles are also rising rapidly. The only victims are hybrid - power vehicles (including range - extended and plug - in hybrid) with both batteries and fuel tanks. However, in the long run, in the domestic market, the substitution effect of new energy vehicles on traditional fuel - powered vehicles still exists, especially in the high - end market above 300,000 yuan.
Li Bin reiterated in an interview during the Guangzhou Auto Show that it will take at least five years to see the clear picture of the competition pattern of new energy vehicles, and it will take ten years to stabilize. By 2030, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the domestic market will exceed 90%.
Li Auto is also optimistic about the subsequent growth of new energy vehicles. Ma Donghui mentioned the potential of new energy vehicles in the high - end market at the third - quarter earnings conference call: "It is expected that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the domestic market will be between 55% and 60% in 2026, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the high - end market will exceed 60%."
This article is from the WeChat public account "Power Plant". Author: Hua Zijian, Editor: Gao Yulei. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.