(Yicai) Aug. 31 -- China’s auto market is not doing as well as it has done, and the latest piece of evidence is that electric vehicle that startup Li Auto, which had stuck to a ‘no price cut policy’ since the start of the year despite a fierce price war, has introduced a set of buying incentives.

Experts believe that Li Auto’s move at a moment when competition in the extended-range new energy vehicle segment, where most of the Beijing-based automaker’s products are, is not intense, indicates that the overall prosperity of China’s auto market may be in decline.

Li Auto announced yesterday that it will provide CNY10,000 (USD1,370) of insurance subsidies to buyers who order a vehicle through Sept. 30 and purchase car insurance from one of its partners.

Some Li Auto stores had begun offering subsidies beforehand in the form of cash or insurance incentives, or even gifts of Nintendo Switch consoles.

In the past two years, Li Auto has been China’s fastest-growing NEV maker. It delivered 34,000 cars last month, up 228 percent from a year earlier. But sales growth is slowing. For this quarter, Li Auto predicted it would sell between 100,000 and 103,000 units, with monthly deliveries of about 34,000 per month, unchanged from July.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione