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China’s car sales declined for the eighth straight month, as coronavirus outbreaks in some Chinese cities hit car production.
Retail sales of passenger cars in January fell 4.4% from a year earlier to 2.09 million vehicles, the China Passenger Car Association said Monday.
The passenger-car association expects the world’s biggest car market to remain sluggish in February, as the economic slowdown, tightened scrutiny in the real-estate sector and sporadic Covid-19 outbreaks may continue to weaken consumer demand.
Toyota Motor Corp. said its sales in China last month dropped 21.5% from a year earlier, while the sales of two China joint ventures of Volkswagen AG fell 19.9% and 17.9% in January, data from the association showed.
Toyota and Volkswagen shut their plants in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin for more than a week last month after the city reported dozens of local Covid-19 cases.
Nissan Motor Co.’s sales fell 8.7% and Honda Motor Co.’s dropped 6.9%.
In January, sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars more than doubled from a year earlier to 347,000 vehicles, the association said.
Tesla Inc. sold 59,845 cars made at its Shanghai factory, 67.8% of which were exported outside China, data from the association showed.
Electric-car makers are facing growing pressure due to surging prices of lithium and other materials, coupled with the reduction of government subsidies for new-energy car purchases, the association said.
Last month, XPeng Inc., which more than doubled sales to 12,922 vehicles, raised the prices of some models by up to $900. The company declined to comment on the price move.
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