Sign of hope as NEVs buck trend of falling car sales in July

In July, 100,000 new energy vehicles were produced and 98,000 were sold in China, up 15.6 percent and 19.3 percent year-on-year, respectively. It marks the first increase of 2020, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced today.

Out of this figure, 79,000 pure electric vehicles were produced and 78,000 sold, a year-on-year growth of 17.9 percent and 24.2 percent.

At the same time, the production and sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles reached 21,000 units and 19,000 units respectively, up 7.8 percent and 2.7 percent from the same period of 2019.

In the first seven months, China produced 496,000 NEVs and sold 486,000, down 31.7 percent and 32.8 percent year-on-year. Among them, the production and sales of electric vehicles reached 380,000 units and 378,000 units, respectively. This was down 35 percent and 34.3 percent from the same period of 2019.

Xu Haidong, vice-chief engineer with the CAAM, said: "After nearly a year of strategic adjustment, new energy vehicle companies are on the right track and individual consumption is dominating the NEV market. These are key factors to ensure the steady development of the market."

With the scaling back of government subsidies to the NEV market since the second half of 2019, it experienced a sales decline that lasted for around a year, Xu added.

Xu said: "It is expected that the NEV sales will maintain steady growth in the second half of this year.

"We estimate that total NEV sales will reach 1 million units this year in China, excluding the sales of Tesla."

In July, China's overall automobile production reached 2.2 million units, down 5.3 percent month-on-month. It sold 2.11 million units, down 8.2 percent month-on-month. However, the figures were up 21.9 percent and 16.4 percent year-on-year, according to the CAAM.

The number of passenger vehicles produced reached 1.73 million units and 1.67 million units were sold in July. The figures were down 3.9 percent and 5.6 percent month-on-month and up 13.2 percent and 8.5 percent year-on-year.

The production and sales of commercial vehicles reached 472,000 units and 447,000 units in July. This was down 10.4 percent and 16.6 percent month-on-month and up 70.3 percent and 59.4 percent year-on-year.

Between January and July, China produced 12.31 million vehicles and sold 12.37 million vehicles in total. It marked a decrease of 11.8 percent and 12.7 percent from the same period of 2019, respectively.