EV Adoption is Shrinking China’s Oil Usage

Electric vehicle adoption is cutting China’s oil consumption for the first time in twenty years. The country’s fuel demand dropped in 2024, reversing decades of growth that saw oil usage more than double since 2004.

China became the world’s biggest crude buyer during that expansion and accounted for over half the global increase in oil demand. Road fuel consumption started leveling off after 2019 and finally turned negative last year as plug-in electric cars gained serious traction across the country.

EVs now account for over a quarter of new energy vehicle (NEV) sales in China and represent roughly one in nine cars on Chinese roads. Only Norway has higher adoption rates, but Chinese brands make up three-fifths of all plug-in vehicles operating worldwide. Beijing built this dominance through over a decade of industrial policies that paired massive government subsidies with sustained coordination between carmakers and battery suppliers. This strategy reshaped global competition and supply chains in the auto sector and simultaneously helped China cut its dependence on imported oil.

New research tracking China’s vehicle fleet shows just how rapidly the transformation is unfolding. Researchers compared actual gasoline consumption between 2015 and 2024 against what usage would have looked like if plug-in adoption had never happened. Researchers also projected demand through 2040 under different growth scenarios, measuring potential fuel savings against a baseline that freezes plug-in EV market share at current levels.

According to the numbers, rising EV adoption trimmed gasoline use by 100,000 barrels per day by 2020, representing about 3% of total consumption that year. By 2024, the reduction hit 430,000 barrels daily, equal to 12% of China’s entire gasoline demand. That adds up to close to 68 million tons of carbon dioxide avoided in 2024 alone, which is close to the emissions drop China saw during its strictest pandemic lockdowns.

Future projections reveal dramatically different paths depending on how fast adoption continues. Rapid transition scenarios position EVs at 60% of all circulating vehicles by 2040 while medium and slow transition places electric cars at under 30%. Battery electric vehicles would outnumber gasoline engines by 2037, with fuel demand peaking as soon as next year under the rapid transition trajectory.

The difference between aggressive adoption and holding at today’s pace could reach a million barrels daily by 2035, climbing to 1.7 million by the end of the next decade, researchers say.

Those potential savings would be beneficial to the entire world, not just China. Preventing 270 million tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2040 will undoubtedly be a major step toward achieving global greenhouse gas reduction targets.

For international oil markets, China’s transformation signals weakening demand from what has been the industry’s primary growth engine for two decades. Widespread EV adoption in China could fundamentally alter how much oil global markets consume and where it needs to flow, putting the world on track to reducing its reliance on oil.

Given that North American-based EV makers like Bollinger Innovations, Inc. (OTC: BINI) are also working to ramp up their penetration of the local and regional auto industry, the resulting widespread uptake of electric mobility around the world could accelerate the rate at which emissions are curbed.

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