China's EVs displaced 1.5 million barrels of oil per day in Q2, IEA says

Electric heavy trucks reach 44% of China’s new truck sales in June

The International Energy Agency estimated that China’s electric vehicle fleet displaced 1.5 million barrels of oil per day in the second quarter of 2026, a volume roughly equal to France’s total consumption. The displacement figure — about 1.5% of global oil demand — nearly doubled from less than 900,000 barrels a day a year earlier, according to the IEA.

China, the world’s largest oil importer, weathered Middle Eastern supply disruptions during the quarter with what The Wall Street Journal described as “gargantuan stockpiles and energy-conservation measures.” The country’s expanding electric fleet provided a third buffer. Sinopec, China’s biggest fuel refiner, reported demand for refined products fell 8.6% in the first half of 2026, attributing part of the decline to EVs.

The market impact is “just beginning,” the Journal reported. Most cars now entering China’s roads have batteries, but it will take decades for the internal combustion engines already in the fleet to be replaced. Electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, accounted for about 13% of China’s cars at the end of 2025, the IEA said. In July, the Chinese government set a target of 30% of all vehicles being electric by 2030.

The shift is moving faster in heavy trucks than in passenger vehicles. Sales of electric heavy trucks exceeded 230,000 last year, nearly 30% of overall sales, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation. The category’s share of new purchases reached 44% in June, the ICCT said. Electric models now make up 4% of China’s truck fleet, according to official data.

In 2021, around 10,500 electric heavy trucks were sold in China — nearly the entire global market for the category, but a sliver of the millions on the road. Back then, the largest vehicles were consigned to the “hard to electrify” bucket, requiring huge batteries and charging capacity. Liquefied natural gas, not batteries, was supplanting diesel. Since then, battery improvements, the rise of battery swapping, and a combination of subsidies and penalties overcame corporate hesitancy.

“Every quarter of data that we get, I’m surprised,” said Felipe Rodriguez, a heavy-vehicle expert at the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation.

Rodriguez estimated that electric heavy trucks displaced between 3.6 million and 11.6 million gallons of diesel per day, assuming a one-for-one substitution of battery trucks for diesel ones. That would equate to between 86,000 barrels and 276,000 barrels of oil, though the conversion from barrels to usable diesel is incomplete. At the top end, the figure represents below 2% of China’s oil consumption before the Iran war.

Rodriguez said the growth “must stutter eventually.” The shift is concentrated in short routes, such as factory-to-factory round trips. Most diesel is burned on long journeys where charging infrastructure is lagging. The Chinese government recently set a target to establish nearly 19,000 miles of zero-carbon trucking corridors to address the long-haul gap.

Other diesel-powered machines are also electrifying, from forklifts to wheel loaders. Some 42 electric cargo ships were plying China’s waterways last year — well below 0.1% of the market, according to the ICCT — but up from six vessels in 2023.

For Emma Li, an analyst at research firm Vortexa, the diesel switch-over is another reason to expect China’s oil demand will not recover to 2025 levels, even as refiners produce more petrochemicals to compensate for declining fuel sales. The impact of EVs on diesel demand “will be even greater than the impact on gasoline,” she said.

Analysts have produced a range of estimates for the volume of oil EVs are displacing in China. The IEA pegged the amount at 1.5 million barrels a day in the second quarter, compared with less than 900,000 barrels a year earlier. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimated 19 million tons of oil across the quarter, which works out to roughly the same. Kpler put the displacement at 1.35 million barrels a day, including some diesel displacement by LNG trucks.

Rogan Quinn at Rhodium Group started instead with data on the electricity consumption of China’s EV chargers, producing an estimate north of 2 million barrels a day. The variations reflect simplifying assumptions about new-vehicle substitution, distance traveled, and fuel efficiency.