China’s electric vehicle revolution has reached a historic milestone: for the first time, the country’s October “Golden Week” holiday saw gasoline demand fall instead of surge, dropping 9% year-over-year to 12.5 million tons despite record travel, according to Reuters.

The shift marks a fundamental turning point in the world’s largest oil market, where EVs are no longer just slowing fuel demand growth—they’re actively reducing consumption during peak travel periods.

EVs Prove Road-Trip Ready During Peak Travel

Tianyu Jiang’s experience exemplifies the transformation. The driver took a 2,000-km (1,200-mile) road trip this month from southwestern Sichuan to Beijing in his electric vehicle.

“I used to drive a petrol car and had never taken an EV for such a big trip, but long-distance driving for an EV doesn’t feel like a problem anymore,” Jiang told Reuters.

He’s among tens of millions of Chinese who benefited from expanded charging infrastructure during the eight-day holiday break. Daily electricity use at charging stations—a proxy for EV usage—rose 45.73% during Golden Week 2025 compared to 2024, while gasoline consumption remained flat with September despite traditionally spiking during the holiday period.

One-fifth of the 63.5 million car trips during the holiday were in electric or hybrid vehicles, according to China’s transport ministry.

Infrastructure Solves Range Anxiety

China’s charging network expansion has been crucial. The country now has 18 million charging ports as of September 2025, up 54.5% from the previous year. This infrastructure buildout has effectively eliminated range anxiety for long-distance travel.

“During travel peaks, both charging and refuelling mean waiting,” Jiang explained. “If you really need a charge, exit the highway and you will find charging stations within 10 km (6 miles), and it’s cheap.”

Peak Oil Demand Arrives Ahead of Schedule

The October data confirms what analysts have been predicting: China’s gasoline consumption peaked in 2023. Sinopec, the research unit of state oil company Sinopec, expects gasoline demand to fall more than 4% in 2025 compared to 2024.

During the first nine months of 2025, EVs and hybrids made up almost half of all new car sales in China. This rapid adoption is fundamentally reshaping the world’s largest crude oil importing nation’s energy consumption patterns.

EVXL’s Take

This Golden Week data represents the moment China’s EV transition moved from theory to undeniable reality. We’ve been tracking this progression throughout 2025: Chinese EVs achieved price parity with gas cars in May, when 39% of EV models hit the sub-$25,000 price point. EVs captured 50.8% of new car sales by April, driven by government trade-in programs covering 2.71 million vehicles.

The infrastructure investment has been staggering. Earlier this year, we reported on China’s electric truck boom, which prompted Rystad Energy to move its peak oil demand forecast for China forward to 2025 from 2026. That prediction now appears validated.

What’s remarkable isn’t just the speed of adoption—it’s that EVs have crossed the usability threshold for long-distance holiday travel, traditionally the most demanding use case. Range anxiety is dead in China, killed by aggressive infrastructure deployment and increasingly capable vehicles.

Meanwhile, foreign automakers continue their retreat, with their market share collapsing from 66% in 2020 to just 38% in the first half of 2025. Western manufacturers bet on a slower EV transition and are paying the price as Chinese consumers demonstrate what happens when EVs become genuinely competitive on price, performance, and convenience.

The implications extend far beyond China’s borders. As BloombergNEF projected, China’s EV sales are on track to surpass total U.S. vehicle sales by 2026. China isn’t just leading the global EV transition—it’s rewriting the rules for what successful adoption looks like.

For the oil industry, this October data should be a wake-up call. When the world’s largest oil importer sees gasoline demand fall during its busiest travel period, the era of ever-growing transportation fuel demand is over.

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