China's Autonomous Urban Delivery Vehicle Sales to Hit 89,000 by 2026 as Industry Enters Scale Commercialization Phase

According to an industry white paper, China's autonomous urban delivery vehicle (Robovan) sector achieved a critical breakthrough in 2025, entering the stage of large-scale commercial operations. Sales reached approximately 22,000 units in 2025, with a nationwide fleet exceeding 30,000 vehicles. The three primary application scenarios currently are express parcel delivery, supermarket/retail logistics, and wholesale freight transportation. Forecasts indicate that annual sales of such vehicles will reach 89,000 units in 2026 and could approach 1.5 million units by 2030, with total fleet size surpassing 3.5 million vehicles. The market is showing early signs of consolidation: in 2025, the top two companies together held about 84% of the market share—one with 51.6% and the other with 32.3%. The industry is currently in a phase of rapid expansion and capacity building, with competition centered on securing road access rights, acquiring customers, and validating scalable operational models. Over the next few years, as large-scale deliveries and operational replication accelerate, companies lacking mass production capabilities, core road-access resources, or sustainable business models will face mounting pressure, likely leading to further market concentration. In terms of business models, some companies have shifted from “selling vehicles” to offering “transportation capacity” via a Robovan-as-a-Service (RaaS) model. Under this approach, firms provide on-demand, instant delivery services through autonomous vehicle networks, charging customers per delivery or per kilometer—eliminating the need for clients to bear vehicle asset costs. However, full-scale commercialization still faces multiple challenges, including the refinement and widespread adoption of open-road access regulations, interoperability and standardization across systems, operational stability and lifecycle cost optimization for large fleets, and the development of supporting infrastructure such as charging/swapping stations and parking facilities. Addressing these issues will require coordinated efforts among technology providers, logistics customers, policymakers, and urban planners. The white paper concludes that China’s Robovan industry has crossed the initial commercialization threshold, driven jointly by supply-side technological maturity and demand-side imperatives for cost reduction and efficiency gains. The next phase will place greater emphasis on scalable operational capabilities, ecosystem collaboration, and deeper integration with urban systems.