China’s homegrown new energy PV sales clocked downturn for six straight months

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Automakers in China sold roughly 137,000 homegrown new energy PVs (“NEPVs”, referring to all-electric and plug-in hybrid PVs) in December, chalking up a decrease of 15.1% over a year earlier, while achieving a surge of 73.5% compared with November, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

The remarkable month-on-month growth resulted from automaker's efforts to sell vehicles as many as possible in the year-end period. Nevertheless, the growth in year-to-date (YTD) NEPV wholesale volume was further reduced to 5.1% due to the six-straight-month year-on-year downturn. The association said the full-year volume reached roughly 1.06 million units.

(Photo source: GAC NE)

The continuous flagging sales were due quite as much to the sales cost hike in the wake of NEV subsidy cut coming into effect at the end of June, and the scarcity of China Ⅵ PHEV models, said Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the CPCA.

With 122,457 units sold (-6%), the all-electric PVs made up 89% of total NEPV wholesale volume in December. Of those, sales of MPVs and SUVs plunged 35% and 37% respectively, while car sales grew 7%.

(Photo source: SAIC Volkswagen)

Regarding specific segments, the A segment (compact size) accounted for 61% of the Dec. pure electric PV sales, featuring a volume of 74,574 units (+41%). With 3,809 units sold, the B segment (medium size) saw its sales zoom up 268% year on year, the fastest-growing one among all segments.

What's more, the Dec. sales volumes of the A00 (mini-sized), the A0 (small-sized) and the C-segment (full-sized) battery-only EVs amounted to 33,520 units (-28%), 9,833 units (-63%) and 721 units (-74%) respectively.

Throughout 2019, 853,494 all-electric PVs were sold with a double-digit growth of 12%.

Last month, the wholesale volume of plug-in hybrid PVs tumbled 51% over the previous year to 14,921 units. With 207,231 units sold in total, the PHEV sector also suffered a sharp decline of 19% in terms of full-year performance.

Most models among the top 10 hotter-selling NEPV models had their Dec. sales increased compared with the same period in 2018. Notably, BAIC BJEV's two models won both the championship and the runner-up honor. The retail sales of the Besturn B30 EV represented an astonishing growth of 96955.6% thanks to the extremely small base number for the prior-year period. Additionally, quite a few new entrants appeared on the Dec. list, including the BAIC EC Series, the e-Lavida and the Venucia D60 EV.

It is worth noting that there was no BYD's model included in the top 10 last month.

With reference to popular NEPV models by year-to-date retail sales, the rankings of the top 6 remained unchanged from the previous month. The top three models all boasted year-on-year growth of over 80%. The occupants of the fourth to sixth places were the only three that posted decrease.