Price war started by Tesla, BYD sends Chinese auto stocks into nosedive in sign of fragile consumer sentiment

Name: Tesla owners in China protest against price cuts as consumers tighten budgets
Uploaded: 2023-03-12T23:30:15.000Z
Duration: 2 min 1 s
Description: Tesla owners in China protest against price cuts as consumers tighten budgets

Traders have been abandoning Chinese auto stocks as a price war spread across the whole industry

BYD slumped 11 per cent in Hong Kong last week, while SAIC, China’s biggest carmaker, tumbled 6.7 per cent

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BYD, the world’s biggest electric-vehicle maker by sales, slumped 11 per cent in Hong Kong and 7.8 per cent in Shenzhen last week. Photo: Xinhua

Zhang Shidongin Shanghai

Published: 7:30am, 13 Mar 2023

Traders have been abandoning Chinese auto stocks as a price war started by Tesla and BYD spread across the whole industry, a sign of weak consumer sentiment amid pessimism about the pace of economic recovery.

BYD, the world’s biggest electric-vehicle (EV) maker by sales, slumped 11 per cent in Hong Kong and 7.8 per cent in Shenzhen last week. SAIC, China’s biggest carmaker, tumbled 6.7 per cent in the same span in Shanghai

The country’s main trio of electric-car makers, Li Auto, Nio and Xpeng shed between 2.6 per cent and 15 per cent in Hong Kong.

The price war intensified last week as premium carmakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz Group and local players such as SAIC and Guangzhou Automobile got in on the act.

The biggest cut came from French automaker Citroen. It chopped 40 per cent off the price of its C6 model to about 130,000 yuan (US$18,660) in central Hubei province, according to local media.

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Tesla owners in China protest against price cuts as consumers tighten budgets

Tesla and BYD had already shaved between 20,000 and 46,000 yuan off their vehicles.