This photo taken on May 9, 2024 shows NIO's 500,000th vehicle at the NIO Second Advanced Manufacturing Base in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province. [Photo/Xinhua]

New industry data reveals a significant surge in the production and sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China for the month of April.

Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed on Saturday that last month's NEV production hit 870,000 units and sales reached 850,000 units, up by 35.9 percent and 33.5 percent year on year, respectively.

This growth has propelled the market share of NEVs to a notable 36 percent in April.

In April, the production of automobiles in China reached 2.406 million units in total, rising 12.8 percent in year-on-year terms. Sales increased 9.3 percent to 2.359 million units.

For the first four months of the year, China's production and sales of NEVs reached 2.985 million and 2.94 million units, respectively.

This represents a year-on-year growth of 30.3 percent and 32.3 percent, respectively, and has increased the market share of NEVs to 32.4 percent.

In 2023, China's auto production and sales both hit a record high to top 30 million units each, according to CAAM data. During the period, the production and sales of NEVs exceeded 9.58 million and 9.49 million units respectively, ranking first globally for nine consecutive years.