GPS was used to collect driving date of private passenger vehicles in actual operation in Harbin.Travel characteristics of private passenger vehicles in Harbin downtown were built，including travel mileagedistribution，travel frequency distribution and travel time distribution. Characteristic values of driving cycle wereobtained by principal component analysis and cluster analysis. The results show that Harbin private passengervehicles’ daily average travel mileage is 27. 36 km，daily average travel frequency is 2. 51 times，daily averagetravel time is 110. 43 minutes. The driving cycle built can well reflect the operation characteristics of passengervehicles in Harbin，through the comparison analysis on characteristic parameters between independent samples andthe whole driving cycle. Finally，the research results have an important significance for matching performance andmarket promotion of the new energy vehicles.