Cui Dongshu: Domestic car market's structural decline and the start of differentiated regional consumption policies.

Cui Dongshu wrote that the structural decline in the domestic car market is different from the start of regional consumption policies, which is profoundly reshaping the development pattern of the domestic passenger car regional market. Under the strong adjustment of policies stimulating domestic demand for passenger cars and the impact of high oil prices, the national passenger car retail market at the beginning of 2026 showed a special trend of shrinking low-end consumption and differentiation growth under passive consumption upgrades. The operation of car markets in various regions shows four core characteristics: first, the subsidy policy has a significant pulling effect on high-end consumption, the economy car market continues to decline, the sedan market shows a clear contraction, and the region with the largest consumption potential has the largest overall decline; second, the differentiation of regional consumption growth under high oil prices intensifies, with the northern regions having substantial growth potential but weak current market performance, while the markets in East China and South China show significant improvement; third, hybrid electric vehicles have become the growth mainstay in some regional markets, while plug-in hybrid models show significantly low trends; fourth, in 2026, C-class models and large three-row seat models performed strongly, with the large SUV market in provinces and cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong showing particularly prominent growth.