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China's sales of EVs and hybrids are at their lowest level in 18 months

China's sales of hybrids and electric vehicles in August grew at their slowest rate in over a year and a half as the government continues to try and stop punishing price wars.

China Passenger Car Association's data on Monday showed that EV and hybrid car sales surpassed gasoline car sales for the sixth consecutive month in August. However, annual growth has slowed to 7.5%, down from 12.5% in July.

This was the lowest gain since February 2024 when the segment recorded an 11.6% decline in sales due to the shifting timings of a week-long Chinese holiday.

Last month, the total number of cars sold was 2,02 million. This is a 4.9% increase on an annual basis and represents the slowest growth rate in seven months.

Last week, BYD reported that it had cut its target sales for this year to 4.6 millions vehicles by up to 16%.

In August, the biggest Chinese competitor to Tesla reported that its domestic sales, which make up nearly 80% percent of global sales, dropped for a 4th consecutive month. It also experienced consecutive monthly production declines for the first since 2020.

Li Auto's sales in August were down on the previous year for a second consecutive month due to a weakening of demand for hybrids with extended range.

CPCA data shows that the Chinese market's sales of extended-range hybrids increased 0.3% on an annual basis after a drop of 11.4% in July. Plug-in hybrids were down 7.3% compared to a dip of 0.2% in July.

Geely Xpeng, Nio and Geely all reported that August was their best-ever month for EV and hybrid vehicle sales.

Geely is China's largest rival to BYD. Sales in this segment jumped 95.2% last month.

The growth in car exports slowed to 20.2% from 25.2% in July. $1 = 7.1529 Chinese Yuan Renminbi (Reporting and editing by Andrew Cawthorne, David Goodthorne)

(source: Reuters)