BMW i8, a hybrid sports car, is displayed during the 16th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition, also known as Auto Shanghai 2015, in Shanghai, April 20, 2015.[Photo/IC]

China's new energy vehicle production jumped threefold to 25,400 vehicles year on year in the first quarter of 2015, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The output of pure electric passenger cars rose 400 percent from a year earlier to 11,000 cars, with plug-in hybrid passenger cars rising nearly 500 percent to 7,257 in the three months of this year. The output of pure electric and plug-in hybrid commercial vehicles went up by 500 percent and 61 percent, respectively.