Shanghai, China aerial view over Yan’an Elevated Highway. [click on image to enlarge]

The car industry is under big pressure right now, but there could be a lot of new buyers in the pipeline, regardless of wailing climate obsessives. The study finds: “Due to the epidemic, people will rethink how they move around in the future.” Whether they opt for electric or fuel-powered models remains to be seen, but at the ‘entry-level’ mentioned here electric cars lose out on the key cost factor.

In a recent study by the market research institute Ipsos, two out of three respondents say that they prefer their own car to public transport—twice as many as before the COVID-19 outbreak, reports Green Car Congress.

At the end of February, Ipsos asked 1,620 Chinese citizens about their mobility preferences, and the fear of the coronavirus in changing their habits.

Private cars jumped from 3rd to 1st place in terms of preferred means of transport, while buses and metros lost ground to a similar extent.

Individually driven two-wheelers, on the other hand, maintained second place. The consulting firm Kantar came to similar conclusions as the Ipsos study.

“Due to the epidemic, people will rethink how they move around in the future,” says a study on the consequences of the corona situation for the Chinese industry. This could increase the desire to buy a car.

One of the key findings of the Ipsos study: Two-thirds of all respondents who do not currently own a vehicle want to buy a car within six months.

For three out of four first-time buyers, protection against infection is a key reason for their purchase intention. In the ranking of purchase arguments, health is thus clearly ahead of motives such as being family-friendly or flexibility.

According to studies, around 80% of all vehicles in the Chinese entry-level segment go to customers who are buying a car for the first time in their lives.

After a deep plunge in February, the Chinese car market is currently showing signs of recovery.

Full report here.

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop

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April 5, 2020 at 11:15AM