VW’s other joint-venture with state-owned automaker SAIC offered a limited time discount on the ID.3 hatchback, another VW EV, by the equivalent of just over $5,100. That put its starting price below the Qin EV from BYD 002594.SZ, one of China’s most popular models.
VW is China’s top-selling foreign automaker.
Since January, when Tesla cut prices in China, about two dozen automakers have followed with price cuts of their own to stay competitive and stoke demand.
China’s auto market, the world’s largest, is on track for overall growth of about 3 percent, with the share of EVs and plug-ins rising fast. Consultancy AlixPartners forecasts this will be the first year made-in-China brands top 50 percent of their home market.
Those changes have created intensifying competition over price and features that have both driven EV sales and threatened industry-wide profitability, analysts say. China’s auto association on Saturday withdrew a pledge it had brokered among 16 automakers, including Tesla, to avoid “abnormal pricing,” saying it recognized that would violate antitrust law.
GM CFO Paul Jacobson said last month the Lyriq represented an opportunity for the automaker in China. Cadillac sales were down almost 8 percent in China last year, industry data shows.
The Lyriq, which starts from just under $59,000 in the United States, has had a slow rollout since its introduction last year.
GM sold 2,326 Lyriqs in the United States in the first half of the year. It sold 918 in China in the first quarter, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, which is set to announce first-half sales data later this month.
