China's electric car boom is increasingly more about hybrids

BEIJING — Hybrid-powered vehicles are proving more popular than battery-only ones in China, even as consumers shift away from gas-only cars, full-year data show.

BYD, by far the market leader, said in a filing Wednesday it sold around 4.3 million passenger cars in 2024. Nearly 2.5 million of those vehicles were hybrid-powered, a reversal from 2023 when BYD sold slightly fewer hybrid cars than battery-only vehicles.

Tesla, which sells battery-only cars, is on track to sell more than 600,000 vehicles in China for a second-straight year, according to CNBC calculations of data from the China Passenger Car Association. Elon Musk's car company is expected to release 2024 figures in the U.S.' morning hours on Thursday.

"We still see growth in the Chinese market in terms of battery electric, but we see it sort of capping," said Joe McCabe, president and CEO of AutoForecast Solutions. He forecasts that by 2031, there will still be demand for internal combustion engine-based vehicles, including from hybrid-powered cars.

Close behind Tesla is Li Auto, with a record 500,508 vehicle deliveries last year, the company said in a filing Wednesday. The majority of the company's cars come with a fuel tank for extending the battery's driving range.

Stellantis' Chinese partner, Leapmotor, which sells both battery and hybrid-powered cars, said it delivered nearly 300,000 cars in 2024, and aims to deliver 500,000 in the year ahead.

Chinese electric car startups that have so far only sold purely battery-powered vehicles ranked lower in full-year deliveries. Electric carmaker Zeekr sold 222,123 battery-powered vehicles, Nio sold 221,970 and Xpeng sold 190,068.

The final tally for Nio and Xpeng for the year include figures for the companies'