Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking into this a bit more, it seems that 20% of the total number of registered vehicles in Beijing are NEV vehicles, but that a far larger percentage of cars on the road at any given moment are NEVs. That's because almost all taxis (and buses) are NEVs. By the way, NEVs might have only reached 50% of new registrations across all of China in late 2025, but in Tier-1 cities, it has been far higher than 50% for years…
It's extremely difficult even to get NEV license plate, trust me I talked with many of those taxi drivers who drove me every single day during those 3 weeks about how much they paid for car, how long it took to register it. The benefit of NEV passed years ago already, even for NEV license plate you have to wait years.
Beyond that, I think the issue with long wait times for NEV license plates is unique to Beijing.