BEIJING — As China’s electric vehicle price war intensifies, its top leaders have sounded the alarm with high-profile calls to halt excessive competition, known colloquially as “neijuan” or involution.
While the buzzword has taken on various meanings in China to imply a race to the bottom, the term was mentioned in Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s annual work report in March. The market regulator’s meeting last month also called for “comprehensively rectifying ‘involutionary’ competition.”
Earlier this week, senior executives of several Chinese EV makers were summoned to Beijing to “self-regulate,” Bloomberg reported.
However, industry players and analysts have predicted that the competition will only increase.
“A certain automaker has taken the lead in launching significant price cuts and many companies have followed suit, triggering a new round of ‘price war’ panic,” the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a Chinese-language statement Saturday, translated by CNBC.
