An Empirical Study on the Relationship between New Energy Vehicle’ Export Sophistication and Industrial Structure Upgrading in China

Following decades of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation industry, most car companies will stop producing petrol cars and promote the development of new energy vehicles in the near future, even in China. This study is based on energy vehicle exports using China’s 31 provinces’ panel data from 2010 to 2020. Considering that China mainly engages in processing trade, this study analyzes the domestic energy vehicle’s export sophistication after deleting intermediate goods, measuring the relationship between export sophistication and industrial upgrading with static and dynamic panel models. Then, heterogeneity tests were deployed to examine the domestic export sophistication of three major economic belts partition. The results revealed that improving export sophistication is conducive to realizing China’s industrial upgrading. China’s new energy vehicles industry is positively affected by export sophistication, R&D, foreign direct investment, average GDP growth rate, market factors, and human resources over the long run. Regarding regional stratification, domestic export sophistication in the eastern and western regions has more significant effects on promoting industrial upgrading than in the central region. In particular, in western regions, every increase in export sophistication by one unit will bring a significant industrial upgrading effect. Given this, China’s new energy vehicles should increase export sophistication to help the country’s industrial upgrading.