Sales at BYD Co., China’s largest electrified vehicle manufacturer, fell for the second straight month in August after Beijing ended a new round of subsidy cuts for EVs and plug-in hybrids.
The company’s deliveries declined 14 percent to 36,009 in August after a 17 percent drop in July.
Sales of BYD’s EVs and plug-in hybrids slumped 23 percent to 16,719 last month, according to numbers the company disclosed Friday.
Deliveries of gasoline-powered vehicles fell 3.6 percent to 19,290 in the month.
In the first eight months, BYD’s total sales dipped 2.8 percent to 295,066. Deliveries of EVs and plug-in hybrids jumped 55 percent to 178,939 while sales of gasoline vehicles plunged 38 percent to 116,127.
Beijing has steadily lowered subsidies for EVs and plug-in hybrids since 2016 and is set to phase out the incentive program by the end of 2020.
In March, the central government raised the technology threshold for EVs eligible for subsidies, halved the subsidies for plug-in hybrids and barred provincial governments from subsidizing sales of these vehicles.
But the government also granted a grace period -- running from March 26 through June 25, during which EVs failing that failed to meet new technical standards were eligible for 10 percent of the subsidies they qualified under before.
