SMM, April 11: according to the latest data of the China Automobile Association, in March this year, China's automobile production and sales data were 2.241 million and 2.234 million, respectively, down 9.1% and 11.7% from the same period last year; month-on-month growth of 23.4% and 28.4%. From January to March, automobile production and sales totaled 6.484 million and 6.509 million, up 2.0 per cent and 0.2 per cent over the same period last year. What is noteworthy is that the domestic automobile production and sales data compiled by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers this month excluded the auto export part.
In terms of new energy vehicles, the domestic production and sales of new energy vehicles completed 465000 and 484000 respectively in March, an increase of 1.1 times over the same period last year. Among them, the production and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles increased significantly, with the completion of 89000 and 88000 respectively, an increase of 1.6 times and 1.4 times respectively over the same period last year. From January to March, the production and sales of new energy vehicles completed 1.293 million and 1.257 million respectively, an increase of 1.4 times over the same period last year.
On the same day, the Federation released the retail sales of passenger cars in March and the wholesale sales of new energy vehicles. According to the data, retail sales in the domestic passenger car market reached 1.579 million in March, down 10.5% from the same period last year and up 25.6% from the previous month. Retail sales totaled 4.915 million vehicles from January to March, down 4.5% from the same period last year and 230000 from the same period last year. The overall trend was lower than expected.
In terms of new energy passenger vehicles, wholesale sales of new energy passenger vehicles reached 455000 in March, an increase of 122.4% over the same period last year and 43.6% month-on-month, which was close to that of previous years. From January to March, 1.19 million new energy passenger vehicles were wholesale, an increase of 145.4 percent over the same period last year.
While releasing the domestic retail data of new energy vehicles in March, the Federation also pointed out that the price rise of electric vehicles in 2022 is relatively rational, and the impact of the current price increases of two rounds of new energy vehicles is not obvious for the time being. First of all, because the sales mode of new energy vehicles is order sales, at present, various car companies have more orders before the price increase, resulting in the basic digestion of pre-orders from March to April; secondly, high oil prices lead to increased advantages of new energy. The third reason is that the rigid demand of consumers of new energy vehicles is strong, and the price sensitivity is relatively low; the fourth reason is that the price of orders before the price increase of new energy vehicles is locked, resulting in the result that the locked price of early booking is cheap, which leads to a new situation in which more consumers are rational or follow the trend.
In addition, the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance also released the latest data on power batteries in March. In March, China's power battery sales reached 24.5GWh, an increase of 175.3% over the same period last year. In terms of loading capacity, China's power battery loading 21.4Gwh in March increased 138.0% compared with the same period last year. From January to March, China's cumulative power battery loading 51.3Gwh increased by 120.7% over the same period last year. Among them, ternary battery loading accumulated 21.4Gwh, accounting for 41.6 percent of the total loading, up 54.4 percent over the same period last year; lithium iron phosphate battery loading accumulated 29.8Gwh, accounting for 58.2 percent of the total loading, up 217.9 percent over the same period last year.
In terms of power battery-loaded vehicles, the top five domestic power battery enterprises from January to March are Ningde Times, BYD, China New Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Honeycomb Energy. Among them, Ningde Times ranked first, with a cumulative loading volume of 25.51Gwh in the first quarter, accounting for 49.75%.
