by Xinhua writer Ma Yujie
HEFEI, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- In early February, amid the soft pre-Spring Festival glow, I walked into a showroom of Chinese NEV startup NIO in Hefei, Anhui Province, ready to see how far the revolution of the new energy vehicle (NEV) sector had travelled.
What immediately caught my eye was not sleek vehicles, but a massive digital screen. On it, nearly 4,000 small lights flickered softly across a map of China, tracing a quiet revolution that connects bustling cities with remote outposts.
At the center of the display, a steadily climbing counter, already beyond the 99 million mark, marked the cumulative number of battery swaps across the country run by NIO. Just days later on Feb. 6, I learned the figure had crossed the 100 million mark, a silent testament to change in motion.
It felt almost surreal to witness such a display of technological ambition not in Shenzhen or Shanghai, but here in Anhui, a province I had long associated with rolling farmlands and quiet rivers. Yet as I stood before that glowing map, I realized how outdated my own perceptions were.
I learned that Hefei, the provincial capital, has long been an important hub for traditional automobile manufacturing. That heritage, I came to understand, formed the foundation for what I was seeing: a shift toward smart, electric mobility that felt less like a sudden disruption and more like a natural evolution.
In 2025, Anhui produced more cars than any other provincial-level region in China, with nearly half of them being NEVs. Just five years earlier, it ranked eighth nationally.
Later, inside NIO's Hefei factory, I watched as cars moved smoothly along production lines, each one distinct from the last in color, trim and configuration. A staffer shared with me that customers can choose from over 3 million combinations, personalize their vehicles through an app, and take delivery in fewer than 10 days.
My colleague told me that such smart factories are not isolated. Also in Hefei, a facility jointly run by JAC and Huawei creates a "digital file" for each vehicle, processing 300,000 data points per second, enabling real-time optimization of the production process.
Homegrown NEV automakers like NIO, Li Auto, and XPeng have acted as "icebreakers" in China's automotive industry transformation. They eschewed the path dependency of the traditional fuel vehicle era, using electrification and intelligence as a new starting point to redefine the industry's business models and user relationships, prioritizing "experience" and "data."
Looking back, the roots of this transformation date back over a decade. In 2013, heavy smog blanketed much of China, sparking public demand for cleaner skies and prompting the government to fasten pace for greener growth. In 2014, NIO, whose name means "Blue Sky Coming," was founded. Around the same time, China formally designated new energy vehicles as a national strategic priority.
The results have been staggering: in 2025, electric vehicles accounted for more than half of all new car sales in China for the first time. This milestone stands in stark contrast to 2014, when EVs represented less than 1 percent of the market -- proof of how fast the country's roads have gone green.
"What's happening in Hefei is a model of how government guidance can align with market innovation," explained Professor Zhang Xianfeng of Hefei University of Technology's School of Economics. "It's not just about building cars, it's about building an ecosystem."
That ecosystem, I discovered, extended far beyond automobiles. In Hefei, scientists are advancing nuclear fusion research in a facility known as the "artificial sun," while quantum communication and computing projects point toward a future built on next-generation technology.
Leaving Hefei, I found myself reflecting on the quiet confidence I had observed in engineers, officials and entrepreneurs. Anhui's story, I realized, is not just about industrial upgrade; it is about the recalibration of identity, the blending of heritage and horizon, and the subtle yet steady momentum of a place writing its next chapter. ■
