, Columnist
Carmakers Must Do Better Just to Keep Up in China
The days of nearly 25 million car sales a year are gone, and buyers are more discriminating for what’s left.
GM’s Buick Velite 6 electric vehicle at Auto Shanghai 2019. Chinese car demand is changing.
Photographer: Bloomberg
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The world’s largest car market is cratering and there are few signs of a recovery. It was never supposed to get this bad — and even if it got close, a helping hand from Beijing would steer things out of any prolonged trouble. Or so people thought...
Instead, passenger car sales in China fell 9.5% last year, more steeply than the 4.3% in 2018, which was the first annual sales decline in over a decade. The drop has dragged down the global automobile industry and its deep supply chain.