People's Daily Online Commentary: New energy vehicles, "price wars" can never be the solution.

In response to a recent new round of "price wars" in the automobile industry, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released an initiative entitled "Initiative on Maintaining Fair Competition Order and Promoting Healthy Industry Development", clearly expressing opposition. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also expressed support for the initiative, emphasizing that "'price wars' have no winners, and no future." Clear signals and strong attitudes have put the brakes on unruly "price wars" in a timely manner. In the past two years, some car companies have publicly opposed "internal competition", yet continue to trigger "price wars", severely affecting industry ecology and market order, and impacting the safety of the industry supply chain. Data shows that the profit margin of the automotive industry in 2024 was only 4.3%, lower than the overall profit margin of downstream industries and the level in 2023; in the first quarter of this year, the profit margin further decreased to 3.9%. On one hand, there are record-high production and sales volumes and good reputation, but on the other hand, there is a dilemma of "losing more money as production increases" and "increasing revenue without increasing profits". Such a deviation indicates that the industry is in a sub-healthy state and cannot be sustained. From a governance perspective, it is also urgent to develop new ideas and measures to regulate unruly "price wars". How to define "unreasonably low prices"? How to distinguish between effective competition and "internal competition"? With decisive action and cautious tolerance, it will be possible to step on the "accelerator" of high-quality development for domestically produced automobiles, and open up broader development space for Chinese manufacturing.