, Columnist
Selling Cars in China Is Worse Than Making Them
No one wants to take the wheel in a showroom if the coronavirus might have been there first.
It’s a poor time for a test drive.
Photographer: Barcroft Media/Getty
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If you thought Chinese automakers were in trouble, try the companies that sell their cars.
Investors have piled into auto dealerships’ stocks, pushing some up as much as 90% over the last six months on hopes that one way or another, there will be demand. They’re still up as much as 13% since the beginning of February, when the coronavirus crisis really took hold amid the usual slow buying period of the Lunar New Year. All that without a footfall in showrooms in a country that’s gone into lockdown.