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Updated May 9, 2026: China’s electric-vehicle battery installations hit 87.2 GWh in September, a fresh annual high, according to the latest data from the China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance (CABIA). The year-over-year increase came in at 14.7%, softening for a second straight month even as monthly volume rose 10.4%.
The new reading beat August’s 79.0 GWh and extended a string of monthly increases through the third quarter. Yet the pace of expansion has cooled steadily from a 33.5% jump in July and a 26.3% rise in August, sliding to the slowest annual growth since April. The slowdown reflects a more mature Chinese EV market, where demand is increasingly supported by commercial-vehicle sales and larger battery packs rather than passenger-car catch-up purchasing.
Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries remained the engine of the market. Installations of LFP cells totaled 74.5 GWh in September, up 19.9% year over year and 10.3% month over month, also marking a high point for 2025. LFP’s share of the total was 85.5%, just below August’s record 85.6%, which ended a three-month streak of record market share for the chemistry.
Ternary battery installations, the second-largest chemistry segment, came to 12.3 GWh, down 10.9% from a year earlier. On a monthly basis, they rose 11.7%, matching the broader uptick in installations and snapping a three-month run of sequential declines. The chemistry’s share edged up to 14.1% from 14.0% in August, but it remained far thinner than in the year-earlier period, underscoring how much ground LFP has gained in China’s passenger and commercial segments.
For the first nine months of the year, domestic EV battery installations totaled 576.3 GWh, up 16.7% year over year. That was slightly slower than the 17.0% growth recorded through August, a sign that the market’s annual expansion is leveling off even as monthly volumes remain near record highs.
LFP installations over the January–September period reached 477.2 GWh, up 18.5% year over year and representing 82.8% of the total. Ternary battery installations came to 97.9 GWh, up 7.3%, taking a 17.0% share. The gap between the two chemistries has widened on the back of cost pressure, improving LFP energy density, and policy support for buses, logistics vans, and other commercial EVs that favor long-life, lower-cost cells.
CABIA attributed the first-three-quarter growth to the expansion of commercial new-energy vehicles and higher battery capacity per vehicle. Battery-electric trucks and special-purpose vehicles made particularly notable contributions, according to the alliance. That detail matters beyond China’s borders: commercial fleets are increasingly seen as the next high-volume segment for electrification in North America and Europe, and Chinese suppliers are already producing much of the cell capacity that serves that demand.
Alongside the increase in installations, combined production of power batteries and energy storage batteries reached 237.8 GWh in September, up 57.3% year over year and 0.3% month over month. Combined sales of the two categories totaled 222.7 GWh, up 52.0% from a year earlier but down 0.2% from August. The slight monthly dip in sales, despite a jump in installations, points to a market that remains heavily oriented toward meeting vehicle production schedules rather than simply building inventory.
Energy storage remained the fastest-growing part of the Chinese battery business. Energy storage battery sales rose 104.4% year over year to 73.5 GWh, accounting for 33.0% of total battery sales. Power battery sales grew 35.0% to 149.2 GWh. The sustained gap between the two segments helps explain why Chinese producers are expanding stationary-storage lines at a time when EV battery growth is moderating, and why lithium prices have become more sensitive to storage deployment cycles.
Combined exports of power and energy storage batteries totaled 44.0 GWh in September, up 64.5% year over year and 3.7% month over month, equal to 19.7% of sales. The export share remained below the record levels seen during the pandemic-era trade peak, but the direction is still strongly upward.
Over the first nine months, combined exports reached 302.9 GWh, up 51.6% year over year. Power battery exports rose 54.7% to 199.7 GWh, while energy storage battery exports increased 45.9% to 103.2 GWh. CABIA said power battery export growth outpaced storage exports in the period, driven mainly by rising vehicle exports and by Chinese automakers’ overseas factories gradually starting production. That shift means more Chinese-built cells are leaving the country embedded in vehicles rather than as standalone battery packs, a trend with direct implications for U.S. trade rules and tariff classification of EV imports.
The September numbers reinforce a structural signal for global buyers: LFP is no longer a niche chemistry but the default choice for high-volume EV applications. In the U.S., where Inflation Reduction Act incentives and domestic-content rules are shaping procurement decisions, automakers have begun adding LFP packs to entry-level models to lower sticker prices. China’s installation mix, with LFP above 85%, shows that the cost logic is not unique to the U.S.—it is already dominant in the world’s largest EV market.
The export data also points to a new phase for Chinese battery makers. With domestic installations growing at a slower rate than battery production and with energy storage absorbing more capacity, manufacturers are using overseas factories and vehicle exports to diversify demand. As those overseas plants ramp up, monthly export volumes of standalone batteries may fluctuate even while total Chinese cell output remains elevated.
For investors and procurement teams tracking the battery supply chain, the key takeaway from the September data is the combination of record volume and cooling growth. China’s battery industry is no longer in the hypergrowth phase of 2021–2023, but it is still adding capacity, still shifting aggressively to LFP, and still feeding an increasingly global supply chain through exports and local production abroad.
The full CABIA dataset for the fourth quarter will show whether the September high can be repeated as Chinese automakers push year-end deliveries. October and November typically benefit from new-model launches and trade-in incentives, so the slowdown in annual growth may not translate into weaker absolute numbers. For now, September stands as the clearest proof that China’s EV battery market is setting new highs even as its growth rate normalizes.
This rewrite was prepared on May 9, 2026, using CABIA data and calculations compiled by CnEVPost.
