With hundreds of thousands of additional new energy vehicles hitting the roads within five years, is Hainan ready?

Hainan enters the countdown to banning the sale of fuel-powered vehicles.

The recently released "15th Five-Year Plan for Hainan National Ecological Civilization Pilot Zone" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan") proposes to steadily advance the ban on fuel-powered vehicle sales by 2030.

In accordance with the Plan, the target is that by 2030, the proportion of new energy vehicle ownership in Hainan is expected to rise to 45%. Meanwhile, the proportion of new energy vehicles among all newly added and replaced vehicles in the public service and social operation sectors, as well as in the private vehicle sector, will reach 100%, with the vehicle-to-charging-pile ratio maintained below 2.5:1.

This target is not put forward for the first time.

At the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in 2018, Hainan publicly announced that it would achieve full island-wide use of new energy vehicles by 2030. In 2019, the "Hainan Province Clean Energy Vehicle Development Plan" further clarified that the sale of fuel-powered vehicles would be banned across the entire island by 2030. Now, this target has been incorporated into the 15th Five-Year Plan once more, marking that Hainan has entered a critical stage of realizing this goal.

From 2018 to the present, what progress has Hainan made in promoting new energy vehicles? Having taken the lead in setting the target of banning fuel-powered vehicle sales, is Hainan fully prepared?

Why Hainan Takes the Lead in Banning Fuel-Powered Vehicle Sales

Hainan's move to fire the "first shot" in banning fuel-powered vehicle sales is closely tied to its development positioning.

Mei Songlin, a senior automotive industry analyst, told the Times Weekly reporter that Hainan is a province focused on ecological and environmental protection, and an ecological civilization pilot zone, with its core positioning as an international tourism island. New energy vehicles are naturally compatible with its core positioning and geographical location.

In 2021, the then-governor of Hainan stated in an interview with CCTV Finance that Hainan undertakes the construction task of "Three Zones and One Center", among which the ecological civilization pilot zone is one of its important positions. Promoting new energy vehicles has been listed as a key direction for green development, and is also one of the four landmark projects for ecological civilization construction.

Apart from policy-driven efforts, Hainan itself has inherent advantages for promoting new energy vehicles.

The total area of Hainan Island is approximately 35,400 square kilometers, with the maximum distance between its eastern and western ends, as well as between its northern and southern ends, being less than 300 kilometers. The full length of the island-ring expressway is over 600 kilometers. For mainstream new energy vehicles with a range of more than 500 kilometers currently on the market, they can fully meet daily usage needs whether for urban commuting or intercity travel.

At the same time, the annual average temperature in Hainan ranges from 22.5℃ to 25.6℃, which is exactly the optimal operating temperature range for new energy vehicles, preventing issues such as reduced power battery activity and significant range attenuation.

Compared with many other provinces, the cost-effectiveness of using new energy vehicles in Hainan is also more prominent.

Hainan is the only province in China that does not separately charge expressway tolls. The costs of road network construction and maintenance are included in the refined oil prices through an additional vehicle usage fee. Each liter of gasoline includes a 1.05-yuan additional vehicle usage fee, resulting in Hainan's oil prices remaining at a relatively high level nationwide for a long time.

Against the backdrop where overall oil prices are still at a relatively high level, the usage costs of fuel-powered vehicles have further increased, while the charging costs for new energy vehicles are relatively stable, making their long-term cost advantage even more noticeable.

In recent years, Hainan has also been continuously improving its charging and battery swapping infrastructure to support the popularization of new energy vehicles.

"Hainan's expressway network adopts a 'field'-shaped layout, which greatly facilitates the construction of the energy replenishment network for new energy vehicles," Mei Songlin stated.

As of September 2025, Hainan has achieved full coverage of charging infrastructure across all 45 expressway service provinces in the province, which can basically meet the charging demand of self-driving tours around the island. The province has built a total of 218,500 charging piles (guns), 4,815 centralized charging stations, and 95 battery swapping stations. The overall ratio of new energy vehicles to charging piles is 2.12:1, which is better than the national average.

Meanwhile, the industrial adjustment pressure brought by banning fuel-powered vehicle sales in Hainan is also relatively limited. Mei Songlin pointed out that Hainan basically has no traditional fuel-powered vehicle manufacturers, so banning fuel-powered vehicle sales will not have a significant impact on the local automotive manufacturing industry.

Electrification of Commercial Vehicles Is the Key Difficulty to Break Through

In the past few years, the promotion of new energy vehicles in Hainan has accelerated markedly, making it one of the regions with the highest new energy vehicle penetration rates in China.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in Hainan rose from less than 4% to 62.9%, representing an increase of nearly 59 percentage points over five years.

This means that for every 10 new vehicles sold in Hainan on average now, at least 6 are new energy vehicles. At the same time, all newly added vehicles in sectors such as public transportation, taxi services, and vehicle rental in Hainan have achieved 100% electrification.

As of the end of November 2025, the number of new energy vehicles in Hainan has reached 517,000, accounting for 23.04% of the province's total vehicle ownership, ranking second among all provincial-level administrative regions in China, only after Shanghai.

However, Hainan still faces new challenges in the process of realizing the full replacement of fuel-powered vehicles in the transportation sector after the rapid growth of new energy vehicles.

In accordance with the targets set in the Plan, by 2030, the proportion of new energy vehicle ownership in Hainan's total vehicle fleet needs to rise from 23.75% in 2025 to 45%, which means that the number of new energy vehicles is expected to increase by hundreds of thousands within these five years.

As the scale of new energy vehicles in Hainan further expands, issues such as improving the energy replenishment system, ensuring energy supply, and promoting transformation in key sectors will all become important factors affecting the realization of the target.

In recent years, Hainan has continuously advanced the construction of its charging network, and has now basically formed a charging service system covering cities, towns, expressways, and tourist attractions. However, with the continuous growth of new energy vehicle ownership, there is still a certain gap between the supply capacity and actual demand in some regions.

A report by Nanhai Wang points out that in Hainan, public charging facilities in expressway service areas, some towns, and remote tourist spots are still relatively insufficient. Some charging stations have low utilization rates, and the regional layout is not balanced enough, resulting in occasional problems such as queuing for charging during peak hours.

In addition, for Hainan, which relies mainly on the tourism economy, a large number of non-local new energy vehicles entering the island in a concentrated manner during holidays will further increase the pressure on charging support in key regions.

Apart from increasing the quantity, the construction of charging and battery swapping infrastructure also requires enhanced coordinated planning.

A relevant official from the New Energy Vehicle Development Division of Hainan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology previously stated in an interview with China Energy News that the current planning for new energy vehicle charging (battery swapping) stations, hydrogen refueling stations, and natural gas vehicle refueling stations in Hainan still has room for further alignment and optimization with the plans for urban construction, transportation, power grid layout, and energy development. This means that in the future, Hainan not only needs to increase the number of charging facilities, but also promote the coordinated development of the transportation, power grid, energy, and other systems.

The energy supply capacity is a crucial foundation for the large-scale development of new energy vehicles.

Hainan is located at the end of the China Southern Power Grid, and is currently connected to the main grid only through two 500kV transmission lines, resulting in relatively limited power support capacity. As the scale of new energy vehicles continues to expand, the power demand from residents' daily lives, industrial development, and transportation electrification will keep growing, putting forward higher requirements for the power grid's peak shaving capacity, power transmission and distribution capacity, and new energy consumption capacity.

In addition, compared with private passenger vehicles, the electrification of commercial vehicles remains a key difficulty that Hainan needs to overcome in the future.

Mei Songlin believes that by 2030, Hainan will face no major obstacles in completing the ban on the sale of fuel-powered passenger vehicles. The real challenge lies in commercial vehicles such as long-distance trucks and buses. If the battery swapping network can be further improved, and support from commercial vehicle manufacturers and policy authorities can be obtained, the transformation of commercial vehicles to new energy power is also achievable.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "City Reading Studio", authored by Li Hang, and published with authorization from 36Kr.