By Bingyan Wang
Shares of Chinese electric-vehicle and battery makers fell Thursday amid worries that Beijing may further tighten pandemic-related curbs that are hurting a weakened auto industry.
China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., the world’s largest maker of electric-vehicle batteries, was recently 3.3% lower at 384.11 yuan ($53.04). Battery supplier EVE Energy Co. and lithium-compounds producer Ganfeng Lithium Group Co. dropped 4.5% and 4.2%, respectively, to CNY90.80 and CNY85.43.
Shenzhen-listed shares of auto maker BYD Co. was recently 3.8% lower at CNY259.50. In Hong Kong, peers Li Auto Inc. and XPeng Inc. shed 8.1% and 11%, respectively.
China’s daily Covid-19 infections topped 8,000 on Thursday, adding to concerns about the lockdowns, which have halted production at factories and prevented people from leaving their homes.
Citi said in a note that overall weekly passenger vehicle retail sales from Oct. 31 to Nov. 6 missed consensus in both the internal-combustion-engine and new-energy-vehicle segments, with declines of 15% and 11%, respectively, from a week earlier.
The China Passenger Car Association on Tuesday said “we should still pay attention to the disturbance caused by the epidemic in the auto market.”
In October, China’s overall passenger-car sales rose 7.3% from a year earlier, according to the latest CPCA data, slower than the more than 20% increase reported from June to September. Sales of new-energy cars fell to 556,000 units in October, down 9.0% from the previous month.
Write to Bingyan Wang at [email protected]
