CCP’s New Five-Year Plan Sidelines Electric Vehicles After Years of Subsidy-Driven Expansion

BYD electric cars lined up to be loaded onto a ship at a port in Yantai, in eastern China's Shandong province, on April 18, 2024. STR/AFP via Getty Images

China is stepping back from designating electric vehicles (EVs) a key strategic priority for the next five years, signaling what could be an end to an aggressive state-backed push that has made the country the world’s largest EV market.

A draft outlining the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 15th Five-Year Plan, released Tuesday by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, shows that electric vehicles have been removed from a list of “strategic emerging industries.”