$比亚迪(SZ002594)$ $小鹏汽车(XPEV)$ 由于市场份额优先于利润，中国电动汽车价格战加剧，加速小型企业的消亡。

三个月的折扣战，让一系列品牌的 50 款车型的价格平均下降了 10%，有人，比如中国智能电动汽车制造商小鹏汽车的总裁布莱恩·顾表，表示价格将在短期内稳定下来，而这种变化将有效推动电动汽车的长期发展。

A 网页链接{bruising price war} in China’s automotive sector is set to escalate as electric vehicle (EV) makers intensify their bid for a bigger piece of the world’s biggest automobile market, according to participants at the Auto China Show in Beijing.

Falling prices could inflict heavy losses and force a wave of closures, triggering an industry-wide consolidation that only those with manufacturing heft and deep pockets would be able to survive, they said.

“It is an irreversible trend that electric cars will entirely replace petrol vehicles,” Lu Tian, head of sales for BYD’s Dynasty series, told reporters on Thursday. BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, aims to redefine some segments to offer the best products and best prices to attract Chinese customers, Lu added.

The three-month discount war has since seen prices for 50 models across a range of brands dropping by an average of 10 per cent.

Goldman Sachs said in a report last week that the automotive industry’s profitability could turn negative this year if BYD lowered its price by another 10,300 yuan (US$1,422) per vehicle.

A discount of 10,300 yuan represents 7 per cent of BYD’s average selling price for its vehicles, Goldman said. BYD mainly builds budget models priced from 100,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan.

China is the world’s largest EV market where sales account for about 60 per cent of the global total. But the industry is facing a slowdown due to a battered economy and consumers’ reluctance to spend on big-ticket items.

At present, only a few mainland EV makers – such as BYD and premium brand Li Auto – are profitable, while most companies have yet to break even.

“Overseas expansion is becoming a cushion against the falling profit margins at home,” said Jacky Chen, head of Chinese carmaker Jetour’s international business. He added that price competition among mainland EV makers would spread to overseas markets, particularly in those countries where sales are still rising.

Cui Dongshu, general secretary of the China Passenger Car Association, said in February that most mainland carmakers were likely to continue offering discounts to retain market share.

A sales manager in US carmaker General Motors’ booth at the auto show told the Post that prices and promotional campaigns, rather than the vehicles’ design and quality, hold the key to a brand’s success in China because budget-conscious consumers are prioritising bargains when considering car purchases.

BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, posted a record net profit of 30 billion yuan for 2023, an 80.7 per cent year-on-year increase.

Its profitability lags General Motors, which reported a net income of US$15 billion last year, a 19.4 per cent year-on-year rise.

Some say that the discount war is drawing to a close.

Brian Gu, president of Xpeng, a maker of smart EVs in China, said prices would stabilise in the near term and that change would effectively propel EV development in the long term.

“Competition actually caused expansion of the EV sector and drove its penetration in China,” he told reporters at a media briefing on Thursday. “It encouraged more people to buy EVs and accelerated the curve of penetration.”