Two cities in Anhui province have been selected for a major national pilot program aimed at boosting automobile consumption across the entire industry chain. The Ministry of Commerce and seven other government departments recently announced a list of 40 cities designated for pilot reforms in automobile circulation and consumption. Hefei and Wuhu are among the chosen cities. Hefei will focus on exploring new models for integrated management services covering both automobile production and sales. Wuhu will concentrate its efforts on green transformation in automobile consumption and improving the circulation of used cars.
The automobile industry is a strategic and pillar sector of the national economy, playing a crucial role in expanding consumption, stabilizing investment, and benefiting people's livelihoods. Currently, China's vehicle ownership exceeds 370 million units. The proportion of passenger cars with an average age over seven years has surpassed 50%, indicating the market is moving beyond a growth phase dominated by new vehicle sales volume and entering a period of rapid expansion in the aftermarket. The aftermarket, which revolves around vehicle usage, represents a trillion-yuan industry. The robust manufacturing strength of Anhui province in the automotive sector provides a solid foundation for upgrading consumption across the entire value chain. The pilot programs in Hefei and Wuhu, the dual core of the province's auto industry, represent a key opportunity to extend production advantages into service and consumption advantages.
Why Hefei and Wuhu Were Chosen
The selection of Hefei and Wuhu is backed by compelling industrial strength. Hefei has achieved leapfrog growth in its new energy vehicle (NEV) industry in recent years, establishing a comprehensive layout encompassing "complete vehicles + components + aftermarket." It has attracted six major automakers: JAC, BYD, NIO, Volkswagen Anhui, Changan, and Ankai. In 2025, Hefei's NEV output reached 1.371 million units, ranking first among Chinese cities for two consecutive years. The city's total vehicle production reached 1.87 million units. In terms of share, Hefei's NEV output accounted for 8.3% of the national total. Notably, Hefei is the only city in China to have simultaneously secured five national-level pilot projects: "battery swapping," "dual intelligence," "dual supply chains," "vehicle-road-cloud integration," and "large-scale application of vehicle-grid interaction."
Wuhu also possesses formidable capabilities. The city has gathered over 2,000 enterprises in the automotive industry's upstream and downstream sectors, including more than 900 large-scale enterprises. It has essentially formed a complete industrial chain development pattern covering "complete vehicle—battery—motor—electronic control" and "key systems—complete vehicle—service—application." In 2025, Wuhu's automotive industry revenue exceeded 680 billion yuan, with one in every five cars exported from China being "Made in Wuhu."
The pilot program covers 40 cities nationwide, with each location implementing measures based on its unique resources and strengths. Key focus areas include vehicle modification, intelligent connectivity, motorsport culture, green transformation, and used car circulation. This represents a fundamental shift from previous consumption-stimulus policies. Past policies often relied on short-term incentives like purchase subsidies. This initiative, however, is a systematic institutional innovation. It encourages local governments to pioneer and experiment across the entire vehicle lifecycle—covering new cars, used cars, end-of-life vehicles, and the aftermarket—to remove unreasonable restrictions and foster new scenarios and business models.
An official from the Ministry of Commerce stated at a press conference that this policy deployment emphasizes both revitalizing existing stock and optimizing new increments, deepening the transition in automobile consumption from purchase management to usage management. Pilot cities will focus on the entire chain of vehicle purchase and use, using reform to eliminate bottlenecks and innovation to cultivate new growth points. As noted by an industry expert, the strategic value of this pilot lies in exploring experience in certain regions first before promoting it nationwide. The pilot programs in Hefei and Wuhu are expected to further unleash the automobile consumption potential of Anhui province and promote the high-quality development of the automobile market.
Exploring New Models for Integrated Production-Sales Management
Aligned with the pilot's key reform and innovation directions, Hefei is focusing on a "new model for integrated automobile production and sales management services." It aims to leverage its dual advantages in "vehicle manufacturing and consumption innovation" to connect the entire chain from "R&D—production—sales—aftermarket." According to information from the Hefei Municipal Bureau of Commerce, specific efforts will be made in the following areas:
Accelerating the construction of production-sales integration platforms. This involves speeding up the development of one-stop service clusters for new energy vehicles and creating a new integrated production-sales model that combines "manufacturing bases + R&D centers + sales centers." The goal is to complete or bring into operation at least three integrated projects, such as the NIO Industrial Tourism Complex and BYD's Di Space, by the end of 2026.
Continuously fostering an automobile culture atmosphere. This includes consistently hosting brand events like the Hefei International New Energy Vehicle Exhibition and the China University Student Formula Series competitions. It also encourages brand exhibitions to set up debut and premiere zones, regulates the development of new business models like vehicle modification, RV camping, and self-driving tours, adds two new automobile tourism IP routes, and promotes deep integration of automobiles with culture, tourism, technology innovation, and motorsports.
Last September, Anhui province issued an implementation opinion on promoting the high-quality development of new energy vehicle insurance, explicitly proposing to accelerate the construction of an Anhui Provincial Automobile Full-Lifecycle Information Digital Service Management Platform, enrich commercial auto insurance products, and optimize commercial auto insurance benchmark rates. Accordingly, Hefei plans to orderly advance the construction and data integration of the automobile full-lifecycle digital platform, gradually achieving "one-stop online services" for electronic certificates and subsidy applications.
Further popularizing the new model of pre-inspection for new vehicles. This involves deepening the reform of integrating new energy vehicle purchase and electricity application procedures. Simultaneously, it aims to innovate energy replenishment models, striving to add 2,000 public charging infrastructure points annually (including at least 600 high-power charging facilities), 10 new battery swap stations, 100 megawatt-level flash charging stations, and 100 liquid-cooled supercharging stations. It will also promote the intelligent transformation of charging and swapping facilities and the construction of integrated energy stations combining photovoltaic, storage, and charging, achieving full coverage of charging facilities in central villages across the city. The city aims to build a "National Battery Swapping Guidance Zone" and support the construction of a three-level battery swapping network.
An official from the Hefei Municipal Bureau of Commerce stated that guided by the "dual carbon" goals, the city will accelerate the creation of a new paradigm for the automobile industry characterized by "technology empowerment, circular symbiosis, and global reach." It will deepen the innovation ecosystem across the entire "R&D—manufacturing—circulation—aftermarket" chain, providing a replicable and promotable "Hefei Solution" for the transformation of automobile circulation nationwide.
Extracting Greater Value from Vehicle Usage
As the other major pole of Anhui's automobile industry, Wuhu will focus its pilot reforms on two main directions: green transformation in automobile consumption and used car circulation. According to information from the Wuhu Municipal Bureau of Commerce, regarding green transformation, Wuhu will accelerate the layout of new energy infrastructure. It will scientifically and orderly advance the layout and construction of charging (and swapping) facilities across the city, aiming to form a community charging network primarily based on slow charging with emergency fast charging as a supplement, and a public charging network system primarily based on fast charging with slow charging as a supplement. Charging stations will be deployed around concentrated vehicle areas such as national highways, provincial roads, tourist attractions, and parks, with integrated advancement of charging infrastructure construction at the city, county, and township levels.
Wuhu will also support the replacement of old new energy buses and power batteries, and the renovation of charging stations (piles) along highways. It will encourage automakers, sales companies, and operators to deploy battery swap stations and provide purchase incentives through measures like replacement subsidies and free charging piles to promote vehicle replacement consumption.
Regarding used car circulation, the Wuhu used car market has been steadily progressing towards scale, standardization, and branding in recent years, cultivating several used car trading enterprises like Banma and Jinju Technology, with a gradually optimized consumption environment. Seizing this pilot opportunity, Wuhu will implement "one-certificate processing" for used car circulation, cultivate leading dealerships, and improve transaction management systems, driving used cars from a "one vehicle, one condition" model towards standardization, branding, and internationalization.
Focusing on key markets like new cars, used cars, and end-of-life vehicles, as well as critical links like automobile culture development, digitalization of circulation, and automobile exports, Wuhu aims to continuously enhance the standardization, informatization, greening, and integration of automobile circulation. This will help Wuhu build a unified, efficient, green, and circular large market for automobile circulation and consumption.
Wuhu will also guide the clustered development of used car export enterprises, exploring the creation of used car export bases integrating functions like display and trading, maintenance and refurbishment, inspection and certification, customs declaration and export, warehousing and logistics, and financial services. It will explore an export model combining "cross-border e-commerce + used cars" to broaden overseas market channels.
Currently, the proportion of service consumption in household expenditure continues to increase, and the focus of automobile consumption is shifting from "buying a new car" to "using a car well." With the deepening of these reforms, vehicle wheels are expected to "turn" out even greater value.
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