China's car market has been thrown into disarray due to the coronavirus outbreak. Notably, China is the largest automobile market worldwide. The government locked down several major cities, delivering a severe blow to the car market. These measures forced automakers to shut down manufacturing. To this end, consumers are in no rush to buy new vehicles.
According to China's Association of Automobile Manufacturers, new car sales declined by 11.7% year-on-year in March to 2.23 million vehicles. Curiously enough, the stringiest lockdown did not affect demand for electric cars. Their sales, on the contrary, doubled, amounting to 484,000 units. The fact is that electric cars sales are mounting because of reports about the shutdown of the Tesla plant in Shanghai. In March, Tesla assembled only 55,400 units, while in January, the figure totaled 68,100 cars.
"The recent pandemic situation has been quite severe and so the figures in March were not too good, and we currently do not see much improvement in April," Chen Shihua, the association's deputy secretary-general, said. He also added that automakers were pressing the government to adopt supportive measures such as cuts in the auto purchase tax. Earlier, the largest supplier of auto parts, Aptiv, halted production in Shanghai due to coronavirus restrictions. Tesla, GM, Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen are unable to work at full capacity if Aptiv’s plant remains closed.
