China’s new energy PV sales in July rarely drop 4% over prior-year

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China's new energy passenger vehicle (NEPV) wholesale volume reached 68,781 units in July, dropping 4% from the previous year, the first decline in more than two years, according to the data released by the China Passenger Car Association (PVs mentioned here merely refer to China's locally-produced cars, SUVs and MPVs).

For the first seven months, there were roughly 640,000 NEPVs sold across China with a year-on-year surge of 54%.

Much of the blame for the rare drop in monthly NEPV sales should be laid on the downturn in PHEV sales. In July, China's national wholesale volume of plug-in hybrid PVs fell 27% year on year to 17,137 units. Compared with performance in June, the latest PHEV sales also showed a decline of 16%.

Regarding the specific segments, sales of the A-segment (compact) and B-segment (medium) PHEVs plunged 34% and 40% from the prior-year to 10,430 units and 3,487 units respectively. Meanwhile, C-segment (full-sized) PHEV sales volume still soared 78% to 2,863 units, while it failed to counteract the downturn brought by the aforesaid two segments.

Sales of all-electric PVs amounted to 51,644 units last month, climbing 9% over the year-ago period, while tumbling 54% compared with June.

Of that, the A0-segment and C-segment, with 8,836 units and 456 units sold respectively, posted year-on-year decrease of 16% and 66%. Sales of A-segment jumped 26% to 23,025 units. Besides, the A00-segment (mini-sized) BEV sector saw its sales in July edge up 2% to 17,683 units, but its year-to-date sales evidently shrank 20% to 138,337 units, the only segment for BEV that faced decrease in Jan.-Jul. sales.

The association's data showed that BAIC EU Series was still the hottest-selling China-made NEPV model by monthly retail sales. Compared with the top 10 list for the month of June, there were many newcomers, including the Baojun NEV, the Aion S, the BMW 5 Series PHEV, the Fengshen E70, the BYD Tang DM, the ZHIDOU D2S and the BYD S2.

As to year-to-date retail sales, the BAIC EU Series was also the best seller. On the top 10 list by Jan.-Jul. retail sales, BYD took the runner-up to the fourth places. The JAC's IEV 6E was the only one posting year-on-year drop.