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Daniel Ren

China’s shrinking car market has received another reality check as regulators step in to police the hi-tech offerings that carmakers use to drive sales.
A nationwide inspection campaign assessing the quality of Chinese-made cars that was announced this week would see some consumers shelve purchase plans, exacerbating a bearish outlook for the country’s auto sector, dealers and analysts said.
Vice-Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin told a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday that new auto products and technologies would be barred from entering the market unless they passed stricter approval procedures.
“Some reckless innovative designs were installed in vehicles without sufficient testing and verification,” Xin said. “Several incidents attracted public attention due to concerns about the cars’ quality and the safety of autonomous driving technology.”
The ministry announced on Thursday that a one-year campaign to review smart driving, product design and the safety of cars would begin soon.
“Several accidents and growing consumer complaints have spurred the regulators into action,” said Gao Shen, an independent analyst in Shanghai. “With improved oversight, carmakers will have to shift their focus from making their vehicles more intelligent to ensuring quality.”
Three people died in March last year when the Xiaomi SU7 they were travelling in crashed in central China’s Anhui province while its driver-assistance system was operating. The preliminary self-driving system alerted the driver to take control just two seconds before the electric vehicle (EV) crashed into a barrier at high speed.
The crash prompted Chinese authorities to tighten their oversight of early-stage autonomous driving technologies.


Xinhua reported last month that a rising number of complaints about EV battery quality had been received by various public information platforms this year.
Xin told reporters at Wednesday’s news conference that those issues were serious and could not be ignored. He pledged to enhance monitoring of carmakers’ designs and production to safeguard consumers’ interests.
Analysts said China’s carmakers and automotive suppliers were at the vanguard of EV technology and production, buoyed by government support and consumer appetite for innovation.
Nearly all of the roughly 100 carmakers in China have been developing new technologies, such as self-driving systems and digital cockpits, to lure consumers in the world’s largest automotive and EV market.
But Paul Gong, head of China car research at UBS, said intense price competition amid the constant rolling out of new models had become an “enemy within” for the country’s auto industry.
Dozens of carmakers with similar products were embroiled in “involution” as they fought for market dominance, he said in May. The term refers to intense ­competition that erodes sustainable growth and makes profits elusive.
Overall car deliveries in mainland China, including petrol-powered vehicles and EVs, plunged by 20.9 per cent year on year in July to 1.46 million units, data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) showed.
EVs sales, which accounted for 65.1 per cent of last month’s total, fell by 3.9 per cent year on year, extending their decline to a seventh consecutive month as fading government incentives and weaker consumer demand weighed on the market.
Between January and July, Chinese carmakers delivered a total of 5.67 million EVs to domestic customers, down 12.5 per cent from a year earlier, according to the CPCA.


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Vice-minister says that to ensure safety, new technologies that fail to pass stricter approval procedures will be barred from market


Vice-minister says that to ensure safety, new technologies that fail to pass stricter approval procedures will be barred from market.


Reality check for China’s carmakers as authorities tell them to focus on quality, not tech

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Vice-minister says that to ensure safety, new technologies that fail to pass stricter approval procedures will be barred from market

Vice-minister says that to ensure safety, new technologies that fail to pass stricter approval procedures will be barred from market