China's exports of passenger cars totaled 1.59 million units in the first nine months, surging 60% year-on-year, indicating that Chinese brands have made a major breakthrough in comprehensively entering the international market. In September alone, China's exports of passenger cars increased 85% year-on-year to 250,000, of which domestic brands' exports grew 88% to 204,000 vehicles, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). Chinese domestic auto brands have made marked breakthroughs in entering the European and American markets, as well as markets of developing countries, and international car brands are increasingly using an export strategy through bases in China, the CPCA said. Domestic brands have gained significant market share in new-energy vehicles (NEVs), with BYD, Changan Auto, Chery and Geely Auto leading the trend, the Association said.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the resilience of China's automobile supply chain have been proved, with the country's auto exports recording strong growth in the past two years, Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the CPCA, told the Global Times. The nation's surging NEV export is a major driver of the overall export growth, Cui said, noting that both the number of exports and average prices of exported NEVs had grown strongly. Traditional industrial powers like the U.S., Japan and Germany have developed an edge in auto production. Yet, China has become the second largest auto exporter in the world, with great growth potential. China has surpassed Germany to become the world's second largest auto exporter, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) revealed earlier.
SAIC Motor exported 15,509 NEVs and BYD exported 7,736 NEVs in September, CPCA data showed. In addition to domestic brands, foreign auto brands have seen growing production in China and growing exports through their Chinese production bases. For instance, Tesla has been exporting a good number of vehicles produced at its Shanghai Gigafactory to European market since 2020. That factory delivered 483,074 vehicles to consumers in the first nine months of 2022, approaching the total number for all of 2021. China has become the largest market for NEVs, with both domestic and foreign brands competing and growing vigorously, experts said. They pointed out that a series of government policies have been supporting the rapid growth of the industry.
In the first nine months, a total of 16.87 million passenger cars were produced in China, up 18% year-on-year, and 14.88 million were sold, up 2.4%, CPCA data revealed, as reported by the Global Times.
