In 2025, the "No. 1 City for Automobiles in China" may come from the western region.

In the past two years, competition among the top cities in China in terms of automobile production has intensified.

In 2023, the automobile production in Guangzhou reached 3.18 million vehicles, ranking first in the country for five consecutive years. Close behind were Chongqing (2.3179 million vehicles), Shanghai (2.1561 million vehicles), Shenzhen (1.733 million vehicles), and Changchun (1.558 million vehicles), forming the top five cities of the year.

In 2024, the rapid growth of the new - energy vehicle industry directly led to an adjustment in the ranking of the top cities in automobile production.

In 2024, the production of new - energy vehicles in Shenzhen reached 2.9353 million vehicles, making it the city with the highest automobile production in the country and becoming the most unexpected "dark horse" of the year. Meanwhile, Hefei, riding on the wave of new - energy vehicles, achieved a total vehicle production of 1.9109 million vehicles, surpassing Shanghai, Changchun and other cities at one stroke to become the fourth - ranked city in the country in terms of automobile production.

In 2025, the reshuffle of the rankings of the top cities in automobile production continued.

From January to November this year, the automobile production in Chongqing increased by 12.1% year - on - year. Calculated based on this growth rate and the production in the same period last year, the automobile production in Chongqing in the first 11 months of this year has reached approximately 2.498 million vehicles.

At the beginning of this year, Chongqing proposed to strive to achieve an automobile production of 2.6 million vehicles in 2025. If this goal can be achieved by the end of the year, this first city in the west will become a strong contender for the title of "the No.1 Automobile City in China".

Chongqing Strives to Become the No.1 Automobile City

The changes in the automobile industry have added uncertainties to the competition among the top automobile cities.

In the first half of 2024, Chongqing's production reached 1.214 million vehicles, ranking first among cities in the country. However, this advantage did not last until the end of the year. Eventually, Shenzhen achieved a leap with a total automobile production of 2.9353 million vehicles, topping the list of cities in the country in terms of automobile production.

Shenzhen's counter - attack is mainly due to its rapid development in the fields of new - energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles.

In the era of traditional fuel vehicles, cities such as Guangzhou, Chongqing, Changchun, Shanghai, and Wuhan, as major automobile - industrial bases, had long ranked among the top in the country in terms of production. However, as new - energy vehicles gradually replaced fuel vehicles as the dominant force in the industry, the map of automobile production in China was reshaped. A number of cities mainly producing new - energy vehicles rose strongly, and Shenzhen is a representative of them.

In 2021, Shenzhen's automobile production was only 299,500 vehicles. It rose to 874,700 vehicles in 2022, further increased to 1.733 million vehicles in 2023, and reached 2.9353 million vehicles in 2024, about 9.8 times that of 2021.

However, it is uncertain whether Shenzhen can maintain its leading position in 2025.

Since 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics has made an important adjustment to the statistical method of automobile production, changing the statistical principle from the long - used "location of the legal entity of the enterprise" to the "production location".

Under the new statistical rules, the vehicles produced by BYD in its factories outside Shenzhen are no longer included in the production of Shenzhen, the location of its headquarters, but are included in the production of the actual production locations.

Affected by this statistical method, in terms of provincial production comparison, Guangdong's automobile production in the first half of this year was 1.3134 million vehicles, a decrease of about 42.7% compared with 2.2917 million vehicles in the same period in 2024. Its ranking also dropped from the first in the country to the second, 186,100 vehicles less than Anhui, which ranked first.

Chongqing, on the other hand, has become a strong contender for the title of "the No.1 Automobile City" in 2025.

Data shows that from January to November, Chongqing's automobile production increased by 12.1% year - on - year, with new - energy vehicles performing particularly prominently, increasing by 37.2% year - on - year.

In recent years, Chongqing has continuously promoted the transformation and development of the vehicle industry towards electrification, intelligence, and high - end. It has formed a cluster pattern of 19 vehicle enterprises led by Changan, Seres, and Qianli Technology, with multi - point support from Geely, Great Wall, SAIC - GM - Wuling, etc. In 2024, the average value of mainstream new - energy vehicles "Made in Chongqing" reached 236,000 yuan, a full increase of 73,000 yuan compared with the previous year.

Meanwhile, the innovation level of Chongqing's autonomous driving and vehicle - networking technologies has also been continuously upgraded. On December 20, with the official debut of the license plate "Yu AD0001Z", the first official license plate for L3 - level autonomous driving in the country was issued in Chongqing, announcing that China's autonomous driving technology has officially entered the L3 era.

Relying on the remarkable achievements of industrial transformation and the steady growth momentum, whether Chongqing can return to the top of the national automobile production list this year has become the core focus of public attention.

Guangzhou Aims for a "Overtaking on the Curve"

In the race where the rankings of the top automobile cities change frequently, Hefei has become a powerful emerging force in the top camp due to the explosive growth of its new - energy vehicle industry. Meanwhile, Guangzhou, a traditional major automobile base, is actively seeking changes in the process of kinetic energy conversion and embarking on a path of transformation and breakthrough.

Hefei's leap in the automobile industry started in 2020. Before that, Hefei's automobile industry foundation was relatively weak. In 2019, the city's total automobile production was only 449,400 vehicles, including 62,100 new - energy vehicles.

The turning point occurred in 2020 when strategic investors such as Hefei Construction Investment Holding (Group), Guotou Zhaoshang Investment Management Company, and Anhui High - tech Industry Investment Company injected 7 billion yuan into NIO. On October 9, the headquarters of NIO China in the Economic Development Block of Hefei Area of Anhui Free Trade Pilot Zone was officially opened.

In 2021, Hefei added another important bargaining chip. BYD invested 15 billion yuan to build a new - energy vehicle production base in Hefei, and the first - phase project was officially put into operation in June 2022. Since then, Hefei's new - energy vehicle production has soared. In 2022 and 2023, Hefei's new - energy vehicle production reached 255,000 vehicles and 746,000 vehicles respectively.

In 2023, Anhui Province clearly positioned the automobile industry as the "primary industry", and Hefei actively responded by introducing a series of policies to provide clear guidance for industrial development.

With the support of policies and the industrial foundation, Hefei's new - energy vehicle industry has continued to grow at a high speed. In 2024, Hefei's new - energy vehicle production reached 1.3761 million vehicles, a year - on - year increase of 84.45%, ranking second in the list of cities in terms of new - energy vehicle production, second only to Shenzhen.

However, Hefei has a bigger goal - aiming to become the "Capital of New - Energy Vehicles". According to the "14th Five - Year Plan for the Development of New - Energy Vehicle Industry in Hefei", it is proposed that by 2025, the scale of the new - energy vehicle industry in the city will exceed 700 billion yuan, the vehicle production capacity will exceed 3 million vehicles, and 10 enterprises with a scale of over 10 billion yuan will be cultivated, so as to achieve a leap in output value and production to rank among the top in the country.

Different from the rapid development of Hefei's new - energy vehicle industry, Guangzhou, a traditional major automobile base, is facing the dual challenges of the shrinking of the fuel - vehicle base and the transformation to new - energy vehicles.

In 2024, Guangzhou's automobile production was 2.5398 million vehicles, a year - on - year decline of 20%. In the competition among national automobile cities, it lagged behind Chongqing and Shenzhen, ranking third in the country. The Guangzhou Statistics Bureau pointed out in its analysis of this reason that Guangzhou's automobile manufacturing industry is still in the in - depth adjustment period of kinetic energy conversion.

This judgment accurately points out Guangzhou's core dilemma - as the core base in China for joint - venture brands such as Honda, Toyota, and Nissan, Guangzhou's automobile industry has long relied on the fuel - vehicle market. In the wave of new - energy vehicles, the contraction of the production capacity of traditional joint - venture fuel vehicles has directly pulled down the overall production.

Facing the industrial transformation, Guangzhou has launched a systematic transformation. In the 2025 Guangzhou Government Work Report, it was clearly proposed to focus on the transformation of the automobile industry towards electrification, intelligence, and internationalization, and to accelerate the construction of a "One - Trillion - Yuan Industry and a Smart - Vehicle Famous City".

The "Three - Year Action Plan for Promoting the Development of Intelligent Connected New - Energy Vehicle Industry in Guangzhou" released in June of the same year further refined the transformation path, proposing specific goals such as cultivating 2 - 3 automobile enterprises with an annual new - energy vehicle production of over 500,000 vehicles and ensuring that the proportion of new vehicles with L2 (including) or above - level intelligent connected functions exceeds 90%.

Currently, Guangzhou has formed an agglomeration advantage in the autonomous driving industry, gathering domestic autonomous driving enterprises such as Pony.ai, WeRide, Didi WoYa, and Baidu Apollo. Among them, WeRide and Pony.ai have been listed on both the US and Hong Kong stock markets, and the industrial ecosystem continues to improve.

In terms of scenario opening, Guangzhou has cumulatively opened 1,340 test roads with a one - way mileage of 2,601 kilometers in total; and 10 high - speed test roads with a one - way mileage of 263 kilometers in total. As of September 2025, the total demonstration operation mileage reached 8.36 million kilometers, with autonomous driving accounting for 95.93%.

The initial results of the transformation have emerged. The economic operation data of Guangzhou from January to November 2025 shows that the year - on - year decline in the industrial added value of the automobile manufacturing industry has narrowed to 0.8%, among which the production of new - energy vehicles has increased rapidly, with a cumulative production increase of 22.6%.

Song Ding, the dean of the China Urban Experts Network Research Institute, pointed out in an interview with a reporter from Time Weekly that in recent years, Guangzhou has indeed missed some opportunities in the automobile industry, especially in new - energy vehicles. Last year, the added value of Guangzhou's automobile manufacturing industry saw a rare significant decline. The narrowing of the decline this year is mainly because Guangzhou has timely introduced support policies for the automobile industry, especially in the field of new - energy vehicles.

"Although it is still in negative growth at present, the decline is narrowing, and it can be seen that the development of its automobile industry is showing a positive trend," he said.

Looking forward to the future, the "15th Five - Year Plan" proposal of Guangzhou puts forward to make every effort to promote the automobile industry to "overtake on the curve", accelerate the transformation of vehicle electrification and intelligence, brand renewal, and the industrialization of key technologies and core components. At the same time, it promotes the transformation of the first - mover advantage in autonomous driving into an advantage in industrial development, and builds a one - trillion - yuan intelligent connected new - energy vehicle industrial cluster.

In this regard, Song Ding suggested that if Guangzhou wants to catch up with and surpass cities such as Chongqing and Hefei in the new - energy vehicle industry, it needs to take the lead in promoting the strategic upgrading of the industry, gradually shrink and eliminate backward production capacity, increase policy support for new - energy vehicles, deepen cooperation with leading enterprises such as Huawei, consolidate its existing advantages in the automobile industry, and steadily expand to build a late - comer advantage and enhance core competitiveness.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Reading the City Studio", author: Li Hang, published by 36Kr with authorization.