AUTO sales in China fell for a 16th consecutive month in October, with the number of new energy vehicles (NEVs) sold contracting for the fourth month in a row, data from the country’s biggest auto industry association showed.

Total auto sales in the world’s biggest auto market fell 4 percent from the same month a year earlier, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said yesterday.

That followed declines of 5.2 percent in September and 6.9 percent in August. Car sales in 2018 declined from a year earlier, the first annual contraction since the 1990s, against a backdrop of slowing economic growth and trade frictions with the United States.

Sales of NEVs fell 45.6 percent in October, the CAAM said, following a 33 percent decline in September. NEV sales jumped almost 62 percent last year even as the broader auto market contracted.

NEVs include plug-in hybrids, battery-only electric vehicles and those powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

China, which began subsidizing NEV purchases in 2009 to promote the industry, has been a keen supporter of NEVs and has implemented sales quota requirements for automakers. But it cut subsidies for NEVs this year as part of an overall plan to reduce subsidies, making the vehicles costlier and dampening demand for them.

The government is considering further cuts to subsidies for electric vehicle purchases, according to Bloomberg News quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying over the weekend, threatening to deal another blow to the industry.

Global carmakers such as Volkswagen AG and Honda Motor Co. have weathered the slowdown better than some other international brands, which are sputtering along with cheaper local companies due to the cooling demand.

Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., a local partner of France’s PSA Group, said last month it plans to sell all of its shares in a 50-50 joint venture after the assembler sold fewer than 4,000 DS cars last year in the country.

Warren Buffett-backed BYD Co., the country’s biggest maker of new energy vehicles last month reported an 89 percent slump in third-quarter earnings and warned profit could fall as much as 43 percent this year. BAIC BluePark New Energy Technology Co., China’s biggest maker of all-electric automobiles, also forecast a 2019 loss in a grim earnings update.(SD-Agencies)