XPeng CEO Predicts 90% of New Cars in China Will Be Electric by 2030

Most automakers are still figuring out how to sell their millionth electric vehicle. XPeng CEO He Xiaopeng is already talking about what happens after the last combustion engine leaves the showroom floor.

Speaking at the XPeng MONA L03 China debut event on Thursday, Xiaopeng laid out a straightforward prediction: by 2030, new energy vehicles will account for over 90% of new car sales in China. That’s not a hopeful aspiration — it’s an arithmetic projection based on the curve he’s been watching for a decade.

“Ten years ago, in 2014 and 2015, almost nobody believed that new energy vehicles would ever reach nearly 60% of monthly new car sales,” he said. Now they’re there. China’s passenger car retail data for May shows NEV penetration hit 62.9% — an all-time high.

That 62.9% comes against a backdrop of a shrinking overall market. The China Passenger Car Association reported May retail sales of 1.51 million passenger vehicles, down 22.1% year-over-year. Cumulative sales for 2026 so far stand at 7.1 million, down 19.5% from the same period last year. But high fuel prices and a structural shift in consumer preference are accelerating the oil-to-electric transition even as total car sales contract.

Xiaopeng framed the next decade differently. “Many people think the transformation of the auto industry is about making cars prettier or cheaper. I don’t think that’s the core direction,” he said. “The real question is how to give a car a soul — how to truly couple cars with robots, how to make customers feel a car has value.” Every future car, in his view, is a robot on four wheels.

NIO CEO Li Bin has made a similar bet. In June, he predicted pure battery electric vehicles would capture over 80% of China’s new car market by 2030, with NEVs overall exceeding 90% and pure EVs making up more than 90% of those NEV sales.

Neither projection sounds as bold as it would have five years ago. China’s NEV penetration has more than doubled from roughly 28% in 2023 to 62.9% today. At that trajectory, 90% by decade’s end looks less like a prediction and more like a timeline.