China’s passenger car sales are Pihitexpected to rise 4% in September year-on-year and 10.1% month-on-month to 2.1 million units. An estimate by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said new enery vehicles (NEVs), mainly battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, could expand its market share with a penetration rate of 52.4%, and sales of NEVs could rise 47.3% year-on-year to 1.1 million units. This growth is mainly attributed to increased government subsidies for scrapped vehicles and new product launches beefed up by automakers. China in late July introduced a scheme that doubled incentives to consumers, who by trading in their old cars and buying new EVs and gas-powered vehicles, can receive RMB 20,000 and RMB 15,000 ($2,852 and $2,139), respectively. Beijing has received more than 1 million subsidy applications as of Sept. 14. China’s NEVs outsold traditional internal-combustion engine vehicles on a monthly basis in July, taking them mainstream in the world’s largest auto market for the first time, CPCA figures showed. [China Passenger Car Association, in Chinese]
