Modeling, prediction and analysis of new energy vehicle sales in China using a variable-structure grey model

At present, the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry in China is at a huge risk of overheated investment and overcapacity. An accurate prediction of China’s future NEV market is of great significance for the Chinese government to control the growth of the industry at a reasonable speed and the production on a reasonable scale. To this end, a new grey prediction model with a variable structure was established considering the data characteristic of small sample size of China’s NEV sales. In the new model, the value range and optimization space of the order r were expanded, and the definitions and structures of two operators, the grey accumulating operator and grey inverse operator, were unified. Meanwhile, the new model had good structural variability and was fully compatible with other grey models of the same type. The performance of the model was tested with different data sequences, and results showed that the comprehensive performance of this model was better than that of other similar models. Lastly, the model was employed to predict China’s NEV sales. Results showed that the sales were expected to be 3.03 million in 2030, which indicates that China’s NEV market will continue to grow, but at a significantly slower rate. The government and enterprises need to take corresponding measures to promote the healthy development of China’s NEV industry.