March printed the year’s quietest NEV month: 10,400 units, 23.30% penetration. Read against the year-ago figure (15,000 units, 20.93%), volumes were actually down year-on-year — the only month of 2026 where that was true, largely a base effect from March 2025’s incentive-driven surge.

The month’s more durable news was structural, not numerical: procurement was shifting from subsidy-driven retail purchases to project-driven fleet contracts — corridor logistics companies, mining groups and port operators signing multi-hundred-unit frameworks tied to swap and charging infrastructure build-outs (the Hurong corridor’s 1,000-truck Sinotruk–Bashu deal later in the year followed this pattern). Industry data through Q1 showed cumulative NEV penetration around 30% on the year-to-date basis, keeping full-year forecasts of 35–45% intact.

European takeaway: China’s monthly volatility hides contract-driven bulk procurement — a sign the market is maturing from retail to fleet buyers. That’s the same transition European e-truck markets will make as 3PL groups move from pilots to framework orders (Simon Loos’s 75-truck repeat order the same month is its European mirror).