Car sales of Beijing snap five-month decline on subsidy boost

BEIJING, Oct 13 (Reuters): China's passenger vehicle sales rose 4.3 per cent in September from a year earlier, snapping five months of decline with a boost from a government subsidy to encourage trade-ins as part of a broader stimulus package.

All the gains came from battery-powered vehicles, whose buyers and manufacturers have benefited since July from a doubling of subsidies to consumers, while sales of gasoline cars in China, a market foreign brands once dominated, continue to shrink.

Sales in the world's biggest auto market hit 2.13 million vehicles in September, up from 2.04 million a year earlier. For the first nine months, sales were up 1.9 per cent from 2023 levels, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids jumped 50.9 per cent, accounting for 52.8 per cent of overall sales. It was the third month in a row that battery-powered vehicles including plug-ins outnumbered sales of gasoline-engine cars in China.

Gasoline car sales in September were above 1 million, up more than 100,000 from August. But that was far short of September last year, when over 1.29 million were sold in China.