China’s exports of electric vehicles (EVs) doubled in September from a year ago period as automakers struggled with overproduction and price wars at home.
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said on Tuesday that domestic passenger car sales climbed 11.2 per cent year-on-year in September, although they were down from a 15 per cent rise in August.
In the exports, ‘new energy vehicles’, including battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, ruled the roost, jumping 100 per cent in sales to 222,000 units in September, the industry organisation said. This was only slightly lower than the 224,000 units exported in August.
September is a traditional peak period for auto sales in China, with carmakers launching various new models in a month dubbed ‘Golden September’.
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However, it isn’t just the new models that upped sales. China’s EV makers have been increasingly looking abroad to markets such as Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia after the European Union, US, Canada and other countries imposed stiff tariffs on Chinese-made EVs.
Meanwhile, overcapacity and price wars back home have pressured their profit margins, prompting them for the first time since 2014 to invest more abroad in 2024 than inside China last year, the US-based consultancy Rhodium Group, said in a recent report.
BYD – one of China’s largest EV makers – said this month that the United Kingdom has become its largest market outside China. Its sales there rocketed 880 per cent year-on-year in September.
In China, however, BYD’s monthly domestic sales fell in September for the first time since February 2024, down 5.5 per cent from the same month a year earlier, while some of its rivals still recorded strong growth in sales.
Manufacturers in the country have been cracking down on price wars that have raged due to fierce competition. Subsidies for trade-ins for new energy vehicles have helped lift domestic demand and sentiment, though some local governments have suspended such payments in recent months.