ECG — 2024-12-09
News from ECG
In October a total of 542,000 new vehicles were exported from China, marking an 11% increase compared to October 2023. On a year-to-date basis, the total number of new vehicles exported from China has reached 4.85 million units, marking a significant 25.3% year-on-year increase, the latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) states.
Passenger vehicles account for the lion’s share of the exports at 84% of the total. And 78.7% of the volume exported in the 10 month period are internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Exports of ICE vehicles are up by 29.7% on an annual basis to 3.8 million. Meanwhile new energy vehicles (NEVs) witnessed a 6.3% jump in exports with 1.3 million units exported so far this year.
OEMs that are dominating the volumes of new vehicles leaving China are led by Chery Automobile with exports of 109,000 units in September alone, followed by SAIC with 81,000; Geely Group with 57,000; Changan with 49,000; Great Wall Motors with 44,000; BYD with 32,000; BAIC with 29,000; JAC with 29,000 and Dongfeng at 23,000. Yueda Kia, which is a 3 way joint venture that produces Kia brand cars in China, has emerged for the first time in the top ten list. Kia exported the not inconsiderable volume of 16,000 new cars in September alone, bumping Tesla out of the top ten in the process. The year-to-date volumes from the top exporters are once again led by Chery with 829,000 new vehicles exported,followed by SAIC with 664,000. Changan and Geely follow with over 400,000 each,then Great Wall and BYD with over 300,000 each and Tesla with 216,000.
So where are the volumes going? Well, the majority of the ICE volumes are going to markets such as Russia, Mexico, the Middle East, and Brazil.
Belgium, as a European gateway, is the 5th largest export market for vehicles from China and accounted for exports of 182,504 units in the first 8 months of the year, as per the latest available data. And volume coming into Belgium is predominantly NEVs.
But, with big thanks to Destatis - the federal statistical office of Germany - and data from Eurostat, we are able to actually look at the volume of new passenger cars directly imported from China into the European Union. Remember, it takes up to 35 days or so for cars to reach the EU from the ports in China so, there is a lag in exports reaching the target destinations.
Here we see in the first 9 months of the year, over 581,000 new passenger cars have entered the European Union, this is 1.9% down compared to the 593,416 cars imported from China in the first 9 months of 2023.
The volume in September stands out. Why? Well because it is a 71.7% jump compared the volume that came in in August. In September 77,388 new passenger cars were imported into the EU from China.
Now, in order to beat last year’s volume of direct exports of passenger cars from China to the EU, over 232,000 cars need to come in in the final 3 months of this year. This means a volume of, at least, 77,000 units in each remaining month of the year.
But price wars are already developing. OEMs in China have begun to significantly cut prices, and those with large export volumes have made public statements to their suppliers requesting price cuts across the supply chain. So, those volumes that do come in, may hit the showrooms faster than anticipated. Indeed, they may not have that much dwell time at the ports!
ECG Members may access the full Business Intelligence report here.