(Yicai) Oct. 29 -- Hefei is on track to produce more than 1.3 million new energy vehicles this year, outstripping the car manufacturing hubs of Shanghai and Xi’an to rank second in the country, as an increasing number of automakers ramp up investment in the capital of eastern Anhui province.

Hefei’s NEV output surged 74.4 percent in the first nine months from a year earlier to 927,500 autos, according to the latest data from the Hefei Industry and Information Technology Bureau. As of Oct. 21 this figure had increased to more than one million vehicles.

And this year production is expected to soar 74 percent to top 1.3 million units, which would make Hefei the second-largest electric car producing city in the country after Shenzhen, which manufactured 1.7 million autos last year. Shanghai and Xi’an were the only two other cities that produced more than one million autos in 2023.

"The surge in Hefei's NEV output is mainly due to the jump in capacity at auto giant BYD's Hefei plant. BYD accounts for more than half of Hefei's NEV production," Feng Lei, director of the Hangzhou Huoshi Creation Data Industry Research Institute, told Yicai.

The BYD Hefei plant, which was put into operation in June 2022, expects to more than double its current capacity by 2025. Last year, it produced 486,000 units and this is likely to rise to 1.3 million vehicles next year.

Changan Automobile is also a big producer and its Hefei factory manufactured 300,000 autos last year, Feng said. And electric car startups Nio and Xpeng as well as German car giant Volkswagen are in the process of ramping up production at their Hefei factories. So there is a lot of room for growth in the next one to two years.

Hefei is becoming an automobile hub thanks to the rapid growth of the NEV industry in China. Other Chinese cities that also produced NEVs more than 500,000 units last year include Changsha, Guangzhou, Changzhou and Chongqing. Zhengzhou, another city in which Shenzhen-based BYD has invested heavily, is set to join the club, as its electric car output is expected to more than double this year, surging 120 percent to 700,000 autos. 

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor