BYD will slash the price of its already affordable Qin compact sedan with the launch of a lower-cost version that could be priced as low as RMB 79,800 ($11,092), some RMB 20,000 less than the regular model, according to Sun Shaojun, founder of consumer behavior research agency CarFans. This means the popular electric vehicle will reach the same price level as similar internal combustion engine models such as the Nissan Sylphy, which could deepen an already fierce price war in the world’s biggest car market. The Nissan Sylphy was the top-selling compact sedan over the last 12 months in China with nearly 383,000 units sold, closely followed by Volkswagen’s Lavida and the plug-in hybrid version of the BYD Qin, figures compiled by Chinese auto service platform Dongchedi showed. Another cheaper version of BYD’s Chaser 05 affordable sedan, currently priced from RMB 101,800, will also be launched soon, Sun added on Feb. 16 on the Chinese Twitter-like microblogging service Weibo, without revealing further details. [TechNode reporting, Sun Shaojun’s Weibo post, in Chinese]
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