The report analyzes the challenges and future trends of this transition from multiple perspectives, such as policy evolution, technological pathways, economic costs, and infrastructure development. The report also provides targeted policy recommendations to accelerate carbon reduction in the commercial vehicle sector and promote the adoption of zero-emission technologies.

Between 2015 and 2017, the number of NEV brands doubled and the number of NEV models available in the Chinese market tripled. This rapid development of China's new energy automotive industry is one result of the pro-EV policies made at the national and local levels. Because China is now transitioning from pilot- and policy-directed development and a more meaningful engagement with industry, challenges to NEV commercialization consist of mainly local deployment and market protectionism. This study proposed a new index for assessing relative market openness for competitive NEV development: "the NEV Market Openness Index". The index was developed on the basis of conventional diversity combined with penetration indexes, both adopted from biological studies, with a particular focus on passenger NEVs, and based on data from 23 Cities and 20 provinces.

iCET has been involved in the drafting of China's fuel standards since its first iteration and has been tracking its development since. This report is the 7th iCET Annual Report evaluating China's CAFC standard implementation status with recommendations for policy. This year the report, although covering various aspects of China's corporate FC development, places considerable focus on the joint management mechanism of China's existing CAFC standard and the newly introduced NEV credits system. The highlights of this year's report are grouped around three themes: (I) fuel efficiency and the CAFC standard regime, (II) NEV super-credits (flexibility mechanism) and CAFC performance, and, (III) the newly introduced NEV credits system and the CAFC standard regime.