Toyota and Lexus will each have vehicles making global premieres at the Shanghai auto show set to begin on April 19, Toyota Motor Corp. said this week. 

Ford began taking pre-orders in China this week for the Mustang Mach-E it is assembling with Changan Automobile Co. The EV is priced from 265,000 yuan ($40,582) to 379,900 yuan, Ford’s China unit said. 

China’s used light-vehicle market has fully recovered from the negative impact of the coronavirus outbreak that ravaged the country in early 2020, with sales in the first quarter far exceeding the level in the same 2019 period. 

Kia Motors will exhibit a new compact electric sedan, the EV6, at the Shanghai auto show, its China joint venture, Dongfeng Yueda Kia, said this week. The EV6, revealed online earlier, was Kia’s first product developed on the company’s global E-GMP EV platform. 

Electric vehicle startup Xpeng, seeking to gain a competitive edge, this week launched a compact sedan featuring lidar technology developed internally.

Next week's event will see a new batch of models from international automakers.

The stronger-than-expected recovery was due to abnormally low volume a year earlier when the coronavirus outbreak severely affected Chinese business activities including auto sales, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said.

China's new-vehicle sales in March kept rebounding from a year earlier when vehicle demand was curbed by the coronavirus outbreak, surging 67 percent to 2.38 million, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers estimates.

General Motors and its two joint ventures delivered more than 780,000 vehicles in China in the first quarter, an increase of 69 percent from the year-earlier period when the coronavirus outbreak severely dented auto sales and production. 

To date, Ford has maintained sales growth in the Chinese market for four straight quarters.

Xiaomi, the major smartphone maker, went public this week with bold plans to develop intelligent electric vehicles. A late entrant to the EV sector, Xiaomi has the potential to develop into a force that few other players could ignore. 

Under an agreement signed this week, Toyota and local fuel cell system developer SinoHytec Co. will establish a 50-50 joint venture later this year, the automaker said. 

The company disclosed the goal Wednesday after it delivered more than 1,000 vehicles overseas in the first quarter alone.

Vehicle production in China continued to rebound in the first 20 days of March from a year earlier when the coronavirus outbreak curtailed industrial activity across the country, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

SF Motors, the U.S. subsidiary of Chinese light-vehicle manufacturer Sokon, plans to sell an electric-vehicle assembly plant in Indiana to Michigan electric van maker Electric Last Mile. The deal is priced at $145 million, Shanghai-listed Sokon said in a statement Wednesday.