New-car sales will drop 4.8% in July, trade group predicts

Retail sales of new sedans, crossovers, SUVs and multi-purpose vehicles industrywide will shrink 4.8 percent to 1.73 million in July, the China Automobile Dealers Association predicted on Wednesday. The drop reflects unfavorable comparisons to July 2022, when the new-car market rallied after Beijing halved the sales tax on vehicles with engine sizes of up to two liters the previous month, the trade group noted. Despite the latest contraction in the overall market, CADA expects demand for electrified vehicles to remain robust. Retail sales of full electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will jump 28 percent from a year earlier to around 620,000 in July, representing 36 percent of overall new-vehicle sales, it projected.