China will advance electrification to reduce automotive carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency, with new energy vehicles set to become the market mainstay.

By 2040, NEV penetration is projected to exceed 80 percent. Meanwhile, a mature vehicle-road-cloud integrated infrastructure will support the large-scale deployment of high-level automated driving, according to the newly released China's Technology Roadmap 3.0 for Energy-Saving and New Energy Vehicles.

Guided by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and compiled by the China Society of Automotive Engineers, or China-SAE, the road map sets out objectives through 2040 for the automotive industry.

It envisions an intelligent, connected transport system built around NEVs, advancing toward "zero accidents, zero fatalities and high efficiency".

Notably, the road map adds a new key indicator for carbon emission intensity. "By 2040, the average carbon emission intensity of passenger vehicles will be 60 percent lower than in 2024," said Li Kaiguo, chairman of the board of supervisors of China-SAE.

He said the metric adopts a conversion based on lower heating value to translate electricity consumption into carbon emissions, placing battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles on a common carbon scale for evaluation.

Zhang Jinhua, president of the China-SAE, said energy-saving technologies will trend toward diversified power sources, maximized energy efficiency and intelligent control.

Iterative upgrades to high-efficiency power trains are expected to push thermal efficiency, with dedicated hybrid engines reaching a maximum thermal efficiency of 48 percent.

Zero-carbon fuels will complement conventional energy within a diversified vehicle power system; multimaterial, integrated vehicle design will reduce vehicle weight; and intelligent technologies are expected to optimize vehicle energy management.

Zhang added that by 2035, conventional energy passenger cars are all to be hybrid; by 2040, hybrids are expected to exceed 65 percent of new conventional energy commercial vehicles, while low- and zero-carbon commercial vehicles are forecast to reach more than 15 percent.

Application scenarios for new energy commercial vehicles will expand from urban and short-haul operations to medium to long-distance routes. By 2040, their penetration is projected to reach roughly 75 percent.

Fuel-cell vehicles are expected to achieve stepwise breakthroughs — from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands and then millions — with the in-use fleet expected to exceed 4 million vehicles.

While reaffirming electrification, the road map adopts a multipath approach to energy saving and carbon reduction. Internal combustion power will remain important over the next five to 15 years.

By 2040, passenger vehicles equipped with internal combustion engines — whether hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric or range-extended electric — are projected to account for about one-third of new passenger car sales.

The road map also sets technology milestones. All-solid-state batteries are expected to enter small-scale application by 2030 and reach large-scale global adoption by 2035, with performance, cost and environmental adaptability projected to align more closely with consumer needs.

Intelligent and connected vehicles are poised to move into a rapid, market-oriented growth phase over the next five to 15 years, underpinned by a mature infrastructure and data ecosystem.