New Chinese rules mandating a boost in electric vehicle production are raising fears of a glut of battery-powered cars that carmakers will be hard pressed to sell. Regulations adopted in September require EVs to account for up to 8 percent of sales by 2020. But this far exceeds current demand in China, where electric vehicles accounted for just over 1 percent of sales last year. Now industry experts are voicing concerns that this will hit profits — and that some carmakers may not survive. “There will be pain in a coming war of attrition,” said Michael Dunne, an analyst based in Hong Kong who believes the mountain of government-mandated EVs could spark a shakeout in the industry as companies lose money. The wealthier EV producers and those with access to state funds would remain, he said, “while the less well-endowed fall away”. Bernstein, the brokerage, said in a report last week that the new rules adopted in September would push car brands in China — including global groups such as VW and GM — to produce more than 2m EVs by 2020, compared with 336,000 passenger EVs sold in 2016.