{"id":475267,"date":"2026-02-12T14:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475267\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:43:12","slug":"china-issues-new-rules-to-curb-auto-price-war-after-january-passenger-car-sales-drop-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475267\/","title":{"rendered":"China issues new rules to curb auto price war after January passenger car sales drop 20%"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 China<\/a> moved on Thursday to curb a fierce price war among automakers that has caused massive losses for the industry, after passenger car sales dropped<\/a> nearly 20% in January from the year before, the fastest pace in almost two years.<\/p>\n

The State Administration for Market Regulation released guidelines for manufacturers, dealers and parts suppliers aimed at preventing a race-to-the-bottom price war.<\/p>\n

They ban automakers from setting prices below the cost of production to \u201csqueeze out competitors or monopolize the market.\u201d Violators may face \u201csignificant legal risks,” the regulator warned.<\/p>\n

The rules also target deceptive pricing strategies and price fixing between parts suppliers and auto manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Passenger car sales in China fell 19.5% in January from a year earlier, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. That was the biggest percentage drop since February 2024.<\/p>\n

The 1.4 million passenger cars sold in January compared with 2.2 million units sold in December, CAAM said.<\/p>\n

Weakening demand reflects a reluctance of cash-strapped buyers to splash out on big purchases<\/a>. Sales also have suffered from a cut in tax exemptions for EV purchases, coupled with uncertainties over whether trade-in subsidies for EV purchases will continue after some regions phased them out<\/a>, auto analysts said.<\/p>\n

The aggressive price war<\/a> in China\u2019s auto sector has caused an estimated loss of 471 billion yuan ($68 billion) in output value across the whole industry in the past three years, Li Yanwei, a member of the China Automobile Dealers Association, wrote recently.<\/p>\n

Analysts expect domestic demand to dip this year. S&P has forecast sales of light vehicles, including passenger cars, in China will fall up to 3% in 2026.<\/p>\n

However, Chinese automakers are gaining ground in global markets. China’s exports of passenger cars jumped 49% year-on-year to 589,000 in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t foresee a loss in momentum for the Chinese auto industry this year,\u201d said Claire Yuan, director of corporate ratings for China autos at S&P Global Ratings.<\/p>\n

Chinese automakers such as BYD \u2014 the country’s largest and one that overtook Tesla as the world\u2019s top electric vehicle maker<\/a> \u2014 are targeting markets in Europe and Latin America as they confront intense competition in both prices and lineups at home due to oversupply.<\/p>\n

Analysts at Citi expect China\u2019s car exports could jump 19% this year driven by exports of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.<\/p>\n

BYD is targetings around 1.3 million of overseas car sales in 2026, up from the 1.05 million last year. Other major Chinese automakers have also set ambitious sales targets with a focus on exports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 China moved on Thursday to curb a fierce price war among automakers that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,512,242232,164,242231,242233],"class_list":{"0":"post-475267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-chinese-automakers","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-passenger-car","15":"tag-passenger-car-sales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}