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Retail sales in the domestic passenger car market were 1.905 million in August 2024, down 1.0 per cent from a year earlier and an increase of 10.8 per cent month-on-month, according to the Federation of passengers. Of this total, retail sales of conventional fuel vehicles were 870000, down 28 per cent from a year earlier, up 4 per cent from a month earlier, while retail sales of new energy vehicles were 1.027 million, up 43.2 per cent from a year earlier and 17.0 per cent from a month earlier. According to this calculation, the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles in August was 53.9%, which continued to hit an all-time high.

The penetration rate of trams has exceeded 50% for two months in a row, and continued to reach an all-time high in August. Although fuel cars are far from the moment of life and death, joint venture car companies that mainly sell fuel cars seem to have been forced into a corner. How to alleviate the current predicament has become a major problem they need to face.

The scale of the fuel vehicle market continues to shrink under the strong attack of new energy vehicles, which is a fait accompli, while the decline in the fuel vehicle market is mainly due to head car companies, such as FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC-Volkswagen, Guangzhou Automobile Toyota, Guangzhou Automobile Honda and so on. Auto Industry focus counted the August sales data of the top 10 joint ventures and found that only one joint venture of SAIC GM Wuling saw sales growth, while other joint ventures declined, including Guangzhou Auto Toyota, which fell 21.0 per cent year-on-year.

In terms of sales ranking, Volkswagen and Toyota brand sales ranked at the top, including 128400 FAW-Volkswagen, 100000 SAIC-Volkswagen, 71900 FAW-Toyota and 63000 Guangzhou Auto Toyota. Sales of these four joint ventures all declined, of which Guangzhou Automobile Toyota was the worst, down 21.0% from the same period last year, followed by FAW-Volkswagen, down 17.7% from the same period last year. The reason why FAW-Volkswagen sales decline so seriously, mainly because it owns Volkswagen, Jetta, Audi three major brands, of which Volkswagen brand is 76000, Audi brand is 44400, these three major brands decline Domestic new energy vehicles squeeze the traditional fuel vehicle market, FAW-Volkswagen fuel vehicles gradually lack competitiveness, resulting in the loss of market share.

The same is true of SAIC-Volkswagen, whose August sales fell 9.1 per cent to 100000, including 94700 under the Volkswagen brand. Judging from the data, the decline of SAIC-Volkswagen is only half of FAW-Volkswagen, and the reason is particularly simple. One is that SAIC-Volkswagen's electric car sales are better than FAW-Volkswagen. The other is that Audi brand and Skoda brand have a lower impact on SAIC-Volkswagen. The market scale of the two brands is not large, and even a sharp drop will not affect the overall size of SAIC-Volkswagen.

FAW Toyota and Guangzhou Automobile Toyota both declined. Although they are both Toyota joint ventures in China, the performance of the two companies is completely different. FAW Toyota is down 5.1% from the same period last year, and Guangzhou Automobile Toyota is down 21.0% from the same period last year. GAC Toyota's sales have accelerated so far this year, with sales of 484300 vehicles in the first eight months, down 16.6 per cent from a year earlier. Affected by the impact of new energy vehicles and other factors, GAC Toyota's main selling models Camry, Leiling and other sales fell sharply. Not long ago, GAC Toyota dealers said that many stores had lowered their sales targets by about 20%, while encouraging dealers to carry more cars through a stepped bonus pool.

Japanese manufacturers, mainly Toyota, are facing great challenges in the Chinese market, so Japanese manufacturers, including Dongfeng Nissan, Guangzhou Auto Honda and Dongfeng Honda, are naturally very sad. Of these, Dongfeng's daily production and sales were 46500, down 30.6% from the same period last year; Guangzhou Auto Honda was 32400, down 23.0% from the same period last year; and Dongfeng Honda was 24500, down 59.2% from the same period last year. Honda's performance in the Chinese market is very worrying, with only CR-V and Accord selling more than 10,000 models in August.

Among the top 10 manufacturers, brilliance BMW and SAIC GM both fell 42.0 per cent year-on-year, with brilliance BMW falling much more than Audi and Mercedes-Benz. Brilliance BMW sold 34900 vehicles in August, while Audi sold 47900 vehicles, down 16.0 per cent year-on-year and 49500 Mercedes-Benz brands, down 14.9 per cent. In the past, BMW brand sales were higher than Mercedes-Benz and Audi, but after 2024, due to the replacement of the BMW 5-Series, BMW sales in China declined, well below the same level. Not long ago, a recent announcement by BMW announced that it would adjust its performance guidance for fiscal year 2024, mainly because of the decline in BMW's sales in China.

As for other brands, Beijing Hyundai sold 9874 vehicles in August, down 45.2% from a year earlier. The top three models were Elantra, Tusheng and ix35, which were 4188, 2037 and 1543 respectively, while the newly upgraded Sonata still did not improve at 943. Yueda Kia, which is also a Korean brand, sold 6336 vehicles in August, down 2.3% from the same period last year. Although the market share is not large and the sense of existence is not strong, the larger decline compared with other joint ventures is good. At present, Yueda Kia mainly exports its products overseas.

In the wave of electrification, the rapid rise of Chinese car companies has brought about the decline of fuel vehicles, the inventory of joint venture fuel vehicles has been overstocked, the market share has been declining, and finally the joint venture manufacturers are forced to join the price war. But what is sad is that the more outrageous the price reduction of fuel vehicles is, the less people will buy them. In the end, it is the dealers who are under pressure. If they sell them, they will lose money, and they will suffer if they cannot sell them. As a result, more and more dealers are losing money and resell their own brands of new energy vehicles.

SAIC GM Wuling is the only joint venture company to achieve growth. although it is a joint venture of SAIC Group, General Motors and Guangxi Automobile Group, according to the stock ratio statistics, the shareholding of the Chinese side is larger than that of the United States, which is also the main reason why it is in the forefront of the new energy vehicle market. At present, SAIC GM Wuling operates Wuling and Baojun brands, of which Hongguang MINIEV and Wuling colorful fruit are more than 20, 000 vehicles.

Industry insiders say it is expected that China's fuel vehicle market share will be further reduced by 2030, when 3/4 of the Chinese market will be electric vehicles. "Foreign car brands should not sell cars in a smaller and smaller market, but must build their own competitiveness in electric vehicles, and in order to improve their competitiveness, it is a good way to cooperate with Chinese new power car companies."

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