Compared with passenger cars, commercial cars are another story altogether. In July nearly 300,000 such cars were sold, soaring 18.4 percent year-on-year.
This brought January to July sales up to 2.39 million vehicles, 17.5 percent growth from the same period last year.
New energy cars are the fastest-growing segment so far. Some 56,000 such vehicles were sold in July, a 55 percent surge from the same month 2016. Chen Shihua, an assistant to the CAAM's secretary-general, said it was the highest growth seen this year.
From January to July, 250,000 new energy cars were sold, up 21.5 percent year-on-year. The CAAM estimated new energy car sales could hit 700,000 vehicles this year. Despite a wide gap, the organization has not revised its estimate.
Xu Haidong, another assistant to the organization's secretary-general, said the target is within reach because sales usually grow faster in the latter half of the year, a pattern that was seen in the past two years.
