China retailed 1,643,000 passenger cars in October 2026, down 27.1% year on year and up 1.5% on September, according to the China Passenger Car Association's final release of 9 November (Futunn, CnEVPost). New-energy vehicles were 1,109,000 of them, down 13.7% year on year and up 2.3% on September, which puts NEV penetration at a record 67.5%, above the 67.0% set in September. Updated 10 November 2026: this replaces CPCA's 4 November preliminary print of 1,693,000 cars and 1,148,000 NEVs (67.8%), which the final revised down by 50,000 and 39,000 units, as it did for September.
The NEV decline keeps narrowing
NEV retail fell 13.7% year on year in October, a smaller drop than the 16.7% fall in September, though it is still the tenth month in a row of year-on-year decline. CPCA had forecast about 1.07 million NEVs on 23 October; the final count came in above that. The total market fell faster than the NEV segment, which is why electric penetration keeps rising in a shrinking market.
Ten months: 15.0 million cars, 8.9 million of them electric
Cumulative retail for January to October is 14,978,000 units, down 22.3%. Cumulative NEV retail is 8,870,000, down 12.9%, a 59.2% share. Exports keep moving the other way: NEV exports rose 144.7% to 582,000 in October, which lifted NEV wholesale 9.8% even as home retail fell.
What is not out yet
CPCA has not yet published an October manufacturer and model table that a second outlet confirms. AutoNergy only publishes figures it can check against two sources, so the dashboard's brand, model and fuel panels still show August 2026 and say so. Open the live China dashboard for the monthly retail series and the NEV penetration line, or compare with Germany, where battery-electric cars reached 37.0% of October registrations.