In 2025, under the guidance of policies, technological innovation, and market demand, the Chinese motor industry will achieve steady growth in scale and deep optimization of structure, with significant results in efficient and intelligent transformation. As the core power equipment in the industrial field, the motor industry is bidding farewell to the traditional extensive development model and is moving towards high-end, green, and global development, opening a new chapter of high-quality development and laying a solid foundation for industrial upgrading in the next five years.
1、 Industry Development Status in 2025: Parallel Expansion of Scale and Upgrading of Structure
By 2025, the overall market size of China's motor industry will reach 480-518 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of about 7.7%, showing distinct characteristics of "total volume growth and structural differentiation". Among them, industrial motors, as the core basic unit, are expected to generate sales revenue of 407.43 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 4.2% in the past five years, providing stable power support for traditional industrial fields such as mining, manufacturing, and petrochemicals. The drive motors for new energy vehicles have become the fastest-growing segment, with a market size exceeding 60 billion yuan and a growth rate of up to 34%. Permanent magnet synchronous motors account for over 96% of the market share due to their high efficiency advantage. BYD Fit Power, Huawei Drive One, and Huichuan Power remain among the top three in terms of vehicle installation volume, demonstrating the competitiveness of local enterprises in core areas.
Energy efficiency upgrading has become the core theme of industry transformation. After the mandatory implementation of the new version of "Energy Efficiency Limits and Grades for Electric Motors" in January 2025, the proportion of high-efficiency motors with IE3 and above will exceed 75%, and the proportion of ultra high efficiency motors with IE4/IE5 will increase to 40%. Over 80 million units of low efficiency production capacity will be eliminated throughout the year, and the industry's energy efficiency level will reach a new level. Technological innovation provides hard core support for energy efficiency improvement, with the application rate of amorphous alloys and nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials reaching 20%, reducing motor iron loss by 50%, and the efficiency of some nanocrystalline material motors reaching as high as 98.86%; The popularization of silicon carbide devices has increased motor efficiency by 10% and reduced energy consumption of vehicles equipped with such devices by 15%. Multiple technological paths are jointly promoting the green transformation of the industry.
Intelligent transformation accelerates the reconstruction of industrial value. By 2025, the proportion of intelligent motors will exceed 30%. By integrating sensors and IoT technology, multi-dimensional data monitoring such as vibration and temperature can be achieved, and faults can be warned 30 days in advance with an accuracy rate of 95%. This will help improve the comprehensive efficiency of enterprise equipment by 18% and significantly reduce operation and maintenance costs. Intelligence has also given rise to new value growth points, with the annual motor data trading market reaching 8 billion yuan, promoting the upgrade of motors from single mechanical components to digital terminals, deeply integrating with MES and ERP systems, and empowering the overall optimization of production processes.
The regional and competitive landscape presents diverse characteristics. The distribution of production capacity has formed a "three core multipolar" pattern, with the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Chengdu Chongqing economic circles accounting for 35%, 30%, and 15% respectively, focusing on differentiated positioning such as high-end research and development, supporting manufacturing, and industrial transfer. On the competitive level, local manufacturers occupy 73% of the market share in the mid to low power range, but the localization rate of high-end servo motors is still less than 40%, dominated by multinational corporations; The concentration of the automotive motor field has significantly increased, with CR10 rising to 72%, highlighting the head effect. The export market has performed outstandingly, with a year-on-year increase of 19% in export volume for the whole year, showing significant growth in markets such as the European Union and ASEAN. At the same time, trade barriers such as carbon tariffs in the European Union have also forced enterprises to transform towards high-efficiency and high value-added products.
2、 Future outlook: New trends in industrial development from 2026 to 2030
It is expected that the Chinese motor industry will maintain an average annual compound growth rate of 7.2% -9% from 2026 to 2030, and the market size is expected to exceed the core range of 700-800 billion yuan by 2030, with continued differentiation of growth drivers in segmented fields. The drive motors for new energy vehicles will continue to maintain high-speed growth, and the market size is expected to reach over 150 billion yuan by 2030; The proportion of IE5 energy-efficient motors will increase to 30%, and the overall penetration rate of high-efficiency motors will exceed 75%. New energy fields such as wind power, photovoltaics, and smart grids will become core demand engines, driving the continuous expansion of special motors and high-end servo motors.
Technological innovation will be deeply promoted in three directions: efficiency, intelligence, and cutting-edge. In terms of efficiency, IE5 and above ultra efficient motors accelerate penetration, combined with permanent magnet synchronous technology and new material applications, further reducing losses and improving power density; In the field of intelligence, AI is deeply integrated with the industrial Internet, predictive maintenance and full life cycle management will be fully popularized, and motor enterprises will accelerate their transformation to an integrated system solution provider of "motor+drive+control". The layout of cutting-edge technologies continues to increase, and superconducting motors and nuclear fusion motors are gradually moving towards commercialization. Emerging scenarios such as humanoid robots and electric aviation are driving demand for customized and modular motors, opening up new growth opportunities for the industry. The material upgrade will be synchronized, and enterprises will optimize the design of rare earth permanent magnet materials, expand the iteration of ferrite and asynchronous motor technology, cope with rare earth price fluctuations, and enhance supply chain resilience.
The industrial landscape and competitive situation will undergo a deep adjustment. Top enterprises will expand their market share through technology research and integration through mergers and acquisitions, while small and medium-sized enterprises will delve deeper into segmented fields to form a differentiated competitive landscape; The competitiveness of companies such as Huawei and BYD in the field of new energy vehicle motors continues to strengthen, and the localization rate of high-end equipment is steadily increasing. The global layout will become more rational. Enterprises will focus on high energy efficiency and high value-added products, deeply cultivate the markets along the "the Belt and Road", and avoid international trade barriers through technological upgrading. At the policy level, policies for improving energy efficiency, promoting green manufacturing, and updating existing equipment will continue to be implemented to provide a stable policy environment for industrial upgrading.
At the same time, the industry still faces multiple challenges in its development, including fluctuations in upstream raw material prices, barriers to high-end technology, uncertainty in the international trade environment, and increasingly stringent environmental policies that urgently need to be addressed. In the future, enterprises need to increase research and development investment to break through core technologies, optimize supply chain structure, build a diversified guarantee system, expand domestic and international diversified markets, practice green production standards, and build core competitiveness in opportunities and challenges.
Overall, by 2025, the Chinese motor industry has completed a phased transformation from scale expansion to quality improvement, with efficiency and intelligence becoming the core colors of industrial development. In the next five years, with the continuous empowerment of technological innovation and the release of emerging demands, the industry will steadily move forward on the path of high-end and internationalization, providing core driving support for the high-quality development of China's manufacturing industry and the achievement of the "dual carbon" goal.
