Cui Dongshu issued a document saying that customs data in 2025 showed that China’s complete vehicle exports would reach 8.32 million units. Although this data has caused some doubts in the market, it breaks out of the statistical dimension of a single complete vehicle export.From the perspective of the entire global industrial chain, overseas sales of China-made and self-owned brand cars have exceeded 9 million units.
This value covers the direct export of self-owned brand vehicles, the export of international car companies' Chinese bases, the overseas assembly volume of KD parts, and the production and sales of China's own brand overseas bases. It is not only a phased result of the globalization of China's automobile industry, but also marks the completion of the key transformation of China's overseas automobile production and sales system from "products overseas" to "industrial overseas".
According to reports, China's overseas automobile sales and customs statistics of vehicle exports are not the same concept. The former is a comprehensive reflection of the global layout of China's automobile industry, and the latter is only one component of it.
From the perspective of export power structure, passenger car exports will show obvious structural differentiation in 2025. The export growth rate of gasoline vehicles continues to be low, and the overall export growth rate of passenger cars has declined;
The export performance of hybrid passenger cars is outstanding, and plug-in hybrid passenger cars have become the core growth point of exports with ultra-high growth rates.Demonstrating the core competitiveness of Chinese automobiles in the field of new energy technology.
The global layout of China's independent car companies is increasingly improving. The KD production model is gradually implemented overseas. Overseas production bases have formed a certain scale and have become an important source of incremental overseas sales.
Take SAIC as an example. Its global vehicle sales in 2025 will reach 4.5075 million units, but domestic sales statistics are only 4.38 million units. The difference of 120,000 units is exactly the production and sales scale of SAIC's three overseas companies in Thailand, Indonesia, and India. This part of sales is not included in the domestic automobile production and sales statistical system, but it has become an important part of China's overseas automobile sales.
Currently, Chinese automobiles have formed a diversified layout of "complete vehicle exports + KD parts exports + overseas base production + global supply of core components".It not only replicates the layout logic of Japanese automobiles from KD parts to overseas production, but also relies on the first-mover advantage of new energy technology to achieve lane change and overtaking at the key node of the global automobile industry's transformation to new energy.
