Modeling future vehicle sales and stock in China

This article presents an updated and upgraded methodology, the Fuel Economy and Environmental Impacts (FEEI) model (http://www.feeimodel.org/), to project vehicle sales and stock in China on the basis of our previous studies. The methodology presented has the following major improvements: it simulates private car ownership on an income-level basis, takes into account car purchase prices, separates sales into purchases for fleet growth and for replacements of scrapped vehicles, and examines various possible vehicle scrappage patterns for China. The results show that the sales of private light-duty passenger vehicles in China could reach 23–42 million by 2050, with the share of new-growth purchases representing 16–28%. The total vehicle stock may be 530–623 million by 2050. We compare this study to other publicly available studies in terms of both projection methodology and results. A sensitivity analysis shows that vehicle sales are more affected than levels of vehicle stock by the model parameters, which makes projecting sales more difficult owing to the lack of reliable input data for key model parameters. Because it considers key factors in detail, the sales and stock projection module of the FEEI model offers many advantages over previous models and is capable of simulating various policy scenarios.

► An upgraded methodology to project vehicle sales and stock in China is presented.
► It analyzes intrinsic factors that cause the growth of car sales.
► Sales of private light-duty passenger vehicles could reach 23–42 million by 2050.
► The total vehicle stock in China will be 530–623 million by 2050.