Sales of New Energy Vehicles in August fell 15.8% year-on-year

Data released by the China Automobile Industry Association (CAIC) on November 11 showed that car sales fell year-on-year in August. Sales of automobiles totaled 1.958 million, down 6.9% year-on-year. From January to August, automobile sales totaled 16.104 million vehicles, down 11% year on year. The new energy automobile market continued to decline, with sales of 85,000 new energy automobiles in August, down 15.8% year-on-year.

Sales in August increased annually

Data show that automobile production and sales in August completed 199.1 million vehicles and 195.8 million vehicles, respectively, 10.3% and 8% higher than last month, and 0.5% and 6.9% lower than the same period last year. The year-on-year decline in output was 11.4 percentage points smaller than last month, while the decline in sales was 2.6 percentage points larger. From January to August, automobile production and sales completed 15.939 million vehicles and 16.104 million vehicles respectively. The production and sales decreased by 12.1% and 11% respectively compared with the same period of last year, and the decline in production and sales narrowed by 1.4 percentage points and 0.4 percentage points respectively compared with January to July.

China Automobile Association believes that, from the completion of production and sales data in August, the production and sales volume has not reached 2 million vehicles. Although the overall situation of the sharp decline in industry production and sales has changed, the pressure still remains unabated. In August, when the automobile market began to rebound, the ring ratio began to increase, but the increase was not obvious. In the first half of this year, the impact of the overdraft of the five-car promotion has not completely disappeared.

On September 4, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Speeding up the Development of Circulation and Promoting Commercial Consumption. Subsequently, the Ministry of Commerce and other ministries and commissions said that they were conducting in-depth research and consulting the opinions of automobile industry enterprises extensively. They would study targeted policies and measures together, and timely issue support for high-quality development of the automobile industry.

CAAC pointed out that although the overall downward pressure of automobile production and marketing is still large, relevant policies and measures will help ease the downward pressure of the automobile industry and promote automobile consumption.

In terms of vehicle type, production and sales of passenger cars in August reached 1.693 million and 1.653 million respectively, up 10.9% and 7.9% respectively from the previous month, down 0.7% and 7.7% respectively from the same period last year. From January to August, the production and sales of passenger cars were 13.21 million and 13.322 million respectively, and the production and sales decreased by 13.8% and 12.3% respectively. Sales declines continued to narrow from January to July.

In August, commercial vehicle production and sales completed 298,000 vehicles and 305,000 vehicles respectively, which increased by 7.3% and 8.6% over the previous month, while production increased by 0.9% and sales decreased by 2.8% over the same period last year. From January to August, commercial vehicle production and sales completed 27.33 million vehicles and 27.82 million vehicles respectively, down 3.1% and 4.2% respectively from the same period last year. Under the influence of subsidies and other factors, the production and sales of new energy vehicles continued to decline year-on-year, and the decline expanded. Sales of new energy passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles declined sharply.

In August, the production and sales of new energy vehicles were 87,000 and 85,000 respectively, which were 12.1% and 15.8% lower than the same period last year. Among them, plug-in hybrid passenger cars, pure electric commercial vehicles and plug-in hybrid commercial vehicles all show negative year-on-year growth in varying degrees. Only pure electric passenger vehicles achieve positive year-on-year growth.

In August, new energy commercial vehicles sold a total of 0.6 million vehicles, down 57.9% annually and 50.8% year-on-year. Among them, the sales of pure electric commercial vehicles were 0.5 million, down 57% annually, 49.1% compared with the same period last year.

From January to August, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 799,000 and 793,000 respectively, up 31.6% and 32.0% respectively from the same period last year. Among them, 643,000 and 629,000 pure electric vehicles were produced and sold, which increased 41.4% and 40.8% respectively over the same period of last year; 155,000 and 163,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles were produced and sold, which increased by 1.6% and 5.7% respectively over the same period of last year; 1194 and 1125 fuel cell vehicles were produced and sold, respectively, compared with the same period of last year. Increase 7.0 times and 7.3 times respectively.

In August, the export of 89,000 vehicles increased by 9.9% over the previous month and decreased by 0.6% over the same period last year. In terms of vehicle types, passenger cars exported 66,000 vehicles this month, an increase of 9.7% over the previous month and an increase of 0.7% over the same period last year; commercial vehicles exported 23,000 vehicles, an increase of 10.7% over the previous month and a decrease of 4.1% over the same period last year. From January to August, automobile enterprises exported 658,000 vehicles, down 9.8% year-on-year, an increase of 3.5 percentage points over January to July. In terms of vehicle types, passenger car exports totaled 454,000, down 16.3% from the same period last year, while commercial vehicle exports totaled 203,000, up 9% from the same period last year.