Chinese marques lead NEV fast lane

Of the 15 most popular NEV carmakers from January to June, only three were international brands.

Tesla ranked third, and Volkswagen's two joint ventures－FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen－settled for the 14th and 15th places. They had a combined 12.4 percent market share.

In comparison, China's BYD seized a 28.2 percent share in the same period, with 634,000 units sold.

Yang Yue, a 38-year-old bank manager in Beijing, placed an order for an electric P7 from local startup Xpeng in June.

Yang, who also owns a gasoline-powered Infiniti Q50, from the premium arm of Nissan, said he had his first encounter with an EV in February when a colleague who drank at their bank's party asked Yang to drive him home.

The colleague's electric Nio ES6 SUV blew the mind of Yang. "It was completely different. It was so quiet. Acceleration was stunning, and all the novelties including voice-controlled air conditioning were surprising," he said.

The difference was like "between an iPhone and a Nokia, or a Motorola", said Yang. "If you tried electric cars, you are very likely to lose interest in gasoline cars," he said.

Wang at J.D. Power China said smart features and exciting onboard experiences are becoming increasingly important factors for car buyers.

"Buyers do not necessarily purchase a model solely because of these functions, but they certainly won't buy a car if it doesn't have them," he said.

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has said the traditional way of introducing car technology from Europe to China is no longer applicable in the age of software-defined vehicles.

In a Sina Weibo post in July, he said Volkswagen needs to catch up with Chinese carmakers who are "really fast" in terms of onboard experience and autonomous driving.

To do so, Volkswagen established the first subsidiary of its software company Cariad in China earlier this year.

Diess said: "We are going to have software kits in China, for China. I am convinced that we are going to be really, really fast, because China is so fast."

Xu Huixiong, an auto analyst at Essence Securities, said the NEV sector is boosting the development of China's auto industry as a whole.