SHANGHAI: Aito, the car brand from Huawei Technologies Co, is China’s best-selling electric vehicle among EV upstarts for a second straight month, a sign how far Chinese smartphone makers have come in their endeavour to take on some of the nation’s brightest automobile hopefuls.
Aito shipped 21,142 vehicles in February, according to data released by its manufacturer, topping all Chinese electric vehicle upstarts. That was better than more established player Li Auto Inc for a second month.
Li Auto’s February deliveries were 20,251 followed by Nio Inc, which delivered just 8,132 cars, down almost 20% month-on-month. Xpeng Inc, which is supposed to be ramping up production amid supply chain bottlenecks, was further down the list with only 4,545 EVs.
Huawei’s rise up the EV sales charts shows the tech giant has made some impressive inroads into the world’s biggest EV market. It also poses a threat for other still-young electric carmakers like Li Auto, Nio and Xpeng.
Li Auto is only just profitable while Nio has been struggling. Its annual loss widened last year to 20.7 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion).
Market leader BYD Co, which offers both battery-electric cars and plug-in hybrids, posted monthly sales of 121,748 vehicles.
Tesla Inc shipments from its factory in Shanghai, meanwhile, slumped to 60,365 — the lowest in more than a year amid a Lunar New Year holiday sales lull. Of those, 30,224 were for export and 30,141 were for internal shipment.
Total retail passenger vehicle shipments, excluding minivans, fell 21% in February from a year earlier to 1.1 million units, according to data released Friday by China’s Passenger Car Association. That was also down 46.2% from January.
Car sales do usually slow significantly during the peak Lunar New Year travel season, when people return to their hometowns or hold off on buying automobiles in the hope there will be fresh incentives and rebates.
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Overall new-energy vehicle sales in China slipped 11.6% year-on-year to 388,000 units.
