Abstract: In the past 10 years, the new energy vehicle industry has developed rapidly under the policy support of the central government and the joint attention of local governments and enterprises. In order to clearly see the effects of industrial promotion at the national city level over the past 10 years, this paper uses the data of 296 prefecture-level cities across China in 2018, takes a spatial perspective to construct an indicator system for the promotion of the new energy vehicle industry, and uses spatial autoregressive model (SAR) and spatial error model (SEM) to empirically investigate, through two levels (i.e. demonstration and non-demonstration cities) and five typical urban agglomerations, the degree of influence of major factors (e.g. urban government support, urban public transportation and urban scientific research capabilities) on the promotion of new energy vehicles across the country. The study finds that no matter whether in demonstration or non-demonstration cities, the promotion of new energy vehicles is related to the degree of economic development, but the promtion effect is more visible in demonstration cities; in the five major urban agglomerations, the impact of R&D capabilities and the spatial spillover effect are obvious and the effect of other factors varies greatly. On the basis of quantitative research, this paper further explores the possibility to increase the space spillover effect of China’s new energy vehicle market promotion by increasing R&D investment and constructing an industrial system under a competitive landscape, and thereby promoting the development of the new energy vehicle industry. Our research shows that in the future, the promotion of new energy vehicles in China should be based more on the regional perspective to give full play to the spatial spillover effects of cities and ultimately realize the development of the new energy vehicle industry in cities, urban agglomerations and the country. The research conclusions of this paper provide important policy reference for the improvement of the competitiveness of China’s new energy automobile industry and its market promotion.

Key words: new energy vehicle promotion, spatial measurement model, spatial spillover effects, demonstation cities, urban agglomerations