The reporter learned from the press conference of China Automobile Industry Association (hereinafter referred to as China Automobile Association) on the 11th that in March, China's automobile production and sales reached 2.241 million and 2.234 million respectively, with a month on month increase of 23.4% and 28.4%, and a year-on-year decrease of 9.1% and 11.7%. In the first quarter, China's automobile industry as a whole continued to maintain a stable growth trend. From January to March, the production and sales of automobiles reached 6.484 million and 6.599 million, with a year-on-year increase of 2.0% and 0.2%, but the growth rate was 6.8 percentage points and 7.3 percentage points lower than that from January to February. China Automobile Association pointed out that in March 2022, the epidemic occurred in many places in China, coupled with the significant increase of international geopolitical instability, and the production and operation activities of enterprises were affected to a certain extent. In addition, the shortage of chips has not improved significantly. In particular, the rapid rise in the price of raw materials for power batteries has pushed up the production costs of enterprises. As a result, most enterprises have raised their sales prices one after another, affecting the sales in the terminal market. Affected by this, the overall production and sales situation of automobiles is less than expected. Specifically, in the overall production and sales of Chinese cars in the first quarter, the performance of passenger cars was better than that of commercial vehicles: from January to March, the production and sales of passenger cars were 5.499 million and 5.545 million respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 11.0% and 9.0% respectively. In contrast, the cumulative production and sales of commercial vehicles in the first three months were 985000 and 965000 respectively, with a year-on-year decrease of 29.7% and 31.7% respectively, of which the decline of trucks was greater than that of buses. It is worth mentioning that new energy vehicles have been singing all the way from last year to this year. In March, 465000 and 484000 new energy vehicles were produced and sold respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 1.1 times. Among them, 376000 and 396000 pure electric vehicles were produced and sold respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 1.1 times; The production and sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles were 89000 and 88000 respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 1.6 times and 1.4 times respectively; The production and sales of fuel cell vehicles were 500 and 367 respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 10.1 times and 5.2 times respectively. In this regard, Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of China Automobile Industry Association, said that new energy vehicles have become the biggest highlight of the automobile industry. Its market development has shifted from policy driven to market driven new development stage, showing a good development situation of double improvement of market scale and development quality. According to the data, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in 2021 was 3.521 million, a year-on-year increase of 1.6 times, and the market share reached 13.4%. With the application and implementation of the "double carbon" target in the market, China's automobile industry will also accelerate the transformation to new energy vehicles and improve the overall sales volume. This is also one of the key factors for the continued rapid growth of new energy vehicles this year. Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and Secretary General of China Automobile Industry Association, predicts that the production and sales of new energy vehicles will reach 5 million in 2022, further highlighting its leading role in the world. In view of the growth of automobile exports in the first quarter of this year, some analysts pointed out that with the continuous changes of foreign epidemic and geopolitical situation, the advantages of Chinese automobiles are more prominent. At present, Europe is the main export market of China's new energy vehicles. While Belgium, Italy and other countries accelerate the development of new energy vehicles, China's exports of new energy products still account for a large proportion. (Xinhua News Agency)