Not surprisingly, given its where this pandemic all began, the Chinese car market, has bounced back strongly setting a new record of 2.3 million vehicle sales in June.  This represented an upswing of 11.6 percent on the same month last year. And it followed a 14.5 per cent rise in May and a 4.4 per cent lift in April. But don’t forget that pre-pandemic the Chinese vehicle market was in the doldrums – at the halfway point of 2019 the worlds largest automotive market was down 12.4 per cent on the same time in 2018. Chinese sales in fact had not seen a monthly increase since mid-2018, part of the reason, the winding back of subsidies for electrified vehicles. Still slow, electric and hybrid sales in June were 104,000, down 33 percent on June 2019. Official forecasts for the full 2020 calendar year have the Chinese market 10 to 20 percent downturn from the 25.8 million vehicles sold last year.

I’m David Berthon.

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