By Mokhi Sultanova in Tashkent
Western countries may have introduced tariffs to shield their auto industries from the huge Chinese electric vehicle (EV) production surge, but Central Asia stands out for having done precisely the opposite, flinging open its doors.
In 2024, every 10th car on China’s roads was electric. What’s more, Chinese automakers accounted for four in 10 EVs shipped to export markets worldwide.
Some dramatic statistics on Chinese EVs in Central Asia (as gathered by a recent commentary published by Carnegie politika, titled “China has flooded Central Asia with electric cars – the impact will be long-lasting”) catch the eye.
As recently as 2020, the annual value of China’s car exports to the five countries of Central Asia stood at just $750mn. The shipments were largely composed of used internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.
In 2024, cars exported by China to Central Asia boasted a value of nearly $10bn. And shipped EVs accounted for $1.1bn of that figure.
Tenth of all exports
Another eyecatching reality is that, as things stand, automobiles now represent about a 10th of all Chinese exports to the five-state region.
According to the analysis – penned by Temur Umarov, a fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, and Roman Vakulchuk, head of the Climate and Energy Group at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, or NUPI, and co-founder of the Central Asian Development Institute – the “uptick came about because of a fortunate combination of circumstances… the region is experiencing a demographic boom, and both purchasing power and demand for cars are growing.”
Uzbekistan out in front
Nowhere is that more evident than in Uzbekistan. In Central Asia, the country is leading the way in the switch from ICE-cars to EVs. An International Energy Agency (IEA) report, Global EV Outlook 2025, observes that between 2023 and 2024, EV sales in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous country with 38mn people, doubled in share, while the average import price fell almost threefold.
Official trade data show that Uzbekistan imported nearly 29,000 EVs in the first eight months of 2025, more than double the 12,900 brought in during the same period in 2024. Spending on EV imports expanded to $358.9mn from $166.7mn. As of July, the total EV fleet in the country amounted to 73,600 vehicles, up by 8,400 units since April.
The rate of EV adoption in Uzbekistan can be seen in the expansion of the country’s charging network. By May, Uzbekistan had 1,399 charging stations in place, more than double the figure of a year earlier. The capital Tashkent hosted 820 of them.
100 cars per 1,000 people
Umarov and Vakulchuk point to data showing that there are by now more than 100 cars per 1,000 people in all of the Central Asian states except for the poorest state of the region Tajikistan. Largest Central Asian economy Kazakhstan is even nearly level with Russia at 308 cars per 1,000 people compared to Russia’s 331.
The analysis also takes note of how “Central Asia also plays a role as a re-exporter of cars to the Russian market, which saw an exodus of Western companies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It’s more expensive for Chinese exporters to supply cars directly to Russia than Central Asia, since customs duties are three times lower in Kyrgyzstan, for example. As a result, Kyrgyzstan, which has no automobile industry of its own, has since 2022 become the second-largest supplier of cars to Russia after China.”
The growth in Central Asia’s auto demand is progressing in a form of symbiosis with auto supply surge from China. “Beijing,” say the analysts, “is using subsidies and tax breaks to encourage its manufacturers to sell more electric cars both domestically and abroad. Chinese automakers are so keen to increase sales that they are willing to resort to some outlandish schemes, such as selling new cars as used ones with zero mileage.”
Riding on state support, China’s BYD Auto has overtaken Tesla to become the world’s number one EV market player.
In Uzbekistan, 99% of all imported EVs come from China, and in Kazakhstan, sales of Chinese brands are growing at a clip of 50% a year, displacing traditional market leaders such as Hyundai, Kia, and Chevrolet, say the analysts.
Smog-weary buyers
The growing popularity of EVs in smog-ridden Central Asian cities such as Tashkent, Bishkek, Almaty and Dushanbe is also down to the environmental plus they bring in terms of cutting emissions.
Such is their popularity that in Tajikistan, EVs are exempt from taxes and import duties through 2032, say Umarov and Vakulchuk.
For footnotes to above IEA graph, visit the source report.*
An interesting episode in the development of EV manufacturing within Central Asia saw BYD Auto play its cards exactly right. A year after its Uzbekistan plant (its first outside China) was opened in a collaboration with Uzbek automaker ADM Jizzakh, BYD lobbied for a fourfold hike (to around $6,000) in the “recycling fee” (a future scrappage fee) paid on imported EVs. “Since BYD is the only company producing electric cars inside the country, it is exempt from the recycling fee and effectively has a monopoly on Uzbekistan’s electric car market,” says the Carnegie report.
Telling how the Central Asian countries have given up on expensive attempts to diversify supplies of electronics away from Chinese brands, the two authors of the report conclude: “China’s technology monopoly is rapidly making it a necessity for the Central Asian countries to integrate into their giant neighbor’s tech ecosystem. Electric cars are not just an alternative to cars with internal combustion engines; they are also the next stage of the industry’s development, which will bring new technologies.
“Accordingly, by entering this new stage of development of the automotive industry via Chinese electric cars, Central Asia will eventually be forced to adopt Chinese standards for the industry’s development: the entire infrastructure of electric charging stations, servicing, the replacement and disposal of batteries, and in due course, standards for driverless cars. That will ultimately spread to the level of management: first of municipal infrastructure, and then the nationwide transport system, leaving no room for competitors.”
Turkey heading for surrender?
Central Asia is unlikely to be the last region to surrender to the Chinese EV behemoth.
Recent years saw Turkey, for instance, lavish much attention and capital on developing a homegrown electric car, the Togg. But the fast-growing Turkish EV market – over 100,000 fully electric vehicles were sold in the country in the first seven months of 2025, marking a 147% y/y increase – has whetted the appetite of Chinese EV makers.
Are the Togg’s days numbered? (Credit: Metuboy, cc-by-sa 4.0).
To balance foreign investment with protectionism, Ankara has raised tariffs on imported Chinese EVs to 50%, but granted exemptions to firms like BYD that commit to production in Turkey. Sales of imported BYD cars have since soared. The prospect of 150,000 BYD cars per year rolling of the production lines at BYD’s Turkish plant in Manisa when it is ready to roll now poses possible trouble for the Togg.
“They [Togg] may not survive in such a market,” Cagdas Ungor of Marmara University was cited as saying by The Economist in September.
Rise of the ‘electro-yuan’
But back to Central Asia where the Chinese EV phenomenon combined with Beijing’s plans to roll out a proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) projects in the region have economists working overtime staring into the crystal ball.
One consideration is that the combination could drive up Central Asian power demand to such an extent that it could help make yuan-based settlements in cross-border trade and investment more common.
That, in turn, could fuel the rise of the ‘electro-yuan’, akin to the petrodollar, according to a September editorial published by Reuters.
It looked at how in 2023, when a Chinese company committed to a 500-megawatt wind power project in Uzbekistan, it used the renminbi to settle power contracts.
“Rising crude-oil exports in the 1970s were settled in U.S. dollars, helping cement the greenback’s dominance in global trade and finance. A yuan-denominated green electricity trade could pave the way for more usage of the Chinese currency as the world transitions to a net-zero energy system. That would arguably be [Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s] biggest win against the West,” the news agency wrote.
