(Yicai Global) April 18 -- China’s auto market, the world’s largest, is expanding more slowly this year than anticipated amid fiercer competition, according to the general manager of auto giant GAC Group.

Consumer thinking around buying a car is changing rapidly, with those aiming to purchase a fuel-powered vehicle also considering to buy an electric vehicle at the same time, Feng Xingya said in an interview with Yicai Global on the sidelines of the biennial Shanghai Auto Show, which opened today.

In the face of this change, carmakers should maintain high vigilance, accelerate electrification, and achieve intelligent transformation, he added.

In the first three months of this year, GAC’s total sales fell 11 percent from the same period last year to 539,875, but its new energy vehicle sales surged 65 percent to 86,951, according to the latest sales data of the Guangzhou-based automaker. Its pure electric brand Aion saw sales soar 75 percent to 78,318.

At Auto Shanghai, GAC brand Trumpchi unveiled the E9, its first hybrid multi-purpose vehicle, which is priced at CNY330,000 to CNY390,000 (USD48,005 to USD56,734).

If GAC only focuses on Aion, it will lose the development opportunity of hybrid models, Feng noted, so Trumpchi will also make the new energy shift in future and be a hybrid model. Trumpchi plans to stop producing pure fuel models by 2025 and stop selling them by 2028, he added.

Retail sales of passenger cars in China last month rose just 0.3 percent from a year earlier to 1.6 million because of soft demand, according to data recently released by the China Passenger Car Association. First-quarter sales fell 13.4 percent from a year ago to 4.3 million.

US electric vehicle giant Tesla sparked an auto price war in China in January. Since then, dozens of auto brands have followed suit with discounts and subsidies.

Editor: Peter Thomas