BEIJING – Auto sales in China, the world’s largest car market, plummeted 12.4% in June compared to the same month a year ago, according to industry figures released on Friday. In June, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) reported total sales of 2.02 million automobiles.
Between January and June, the country sold 12.89 million vehicles, rising 25.6 percent from the previous year.
With 256,000 units sold last month, sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) such as battery-powered electric vehicles, plug-in petrol-electric hybrids, and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles continued their strong momentum.
Nio Inc, Xpeng Inc, and BYD, among other NEV manufacturers, are growing manufacturing capacity in China, aided by the government’s push of cleaner vehicles to reduce pollution.
In June, Tesla Inc sold 33,155 electric vehicles made in China.
(Yilei Sun and Tony Munroe contributed reporting; Christopher Cushing and Sherry Jacob-Phillips edited the piece.)/n
