Covid-19 could hit the brakes on China’s electric vehicle sales

Last year, when a leading automotive industry body predicted that a prolonged slump in electric vehicle sales would end in 2020, it had no way of knowing what was in store as China prepared for its Lunar New Year celebrations.

Just a few weeks earlier, however, people in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, began falling victim to a mysterious respiratory illness. Cases of the disease, now known to be a new coronavirus—belonging to the same family as SARS, MERS, and the common cold—have ballooned. The virus has since spread to every region in China, but infection rates show no signs of abating.

China’s electric vehicle industry now faces compounding difficulties. As the country attempts to stop the spread of the infection, authorities have taken far-reaching measures that could have an implosive effect on the country’s economy, as well as its already-flagging EV market.

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