(Yicai Global) June 8 -- US electric car giant Tesla led the recovery of China’s battered auto sector last month as new energy passenger vehicle sales jumped almost 20 percent from April due to the diminishing fallout from the novel coronavirus epidemic, according to an industry report released today.

Some 70,200 electric vehicles were sold in May, the China Passenger Car Association’s report said, without revealing exactly how many Tesla cars that included. Shanghai-based NEV startup Nio also performed strongly, the report said.

While monthly figures were up, NEV sales were still 25.8 percent lower than the same period last year.

Overall, sales of passenger cars in May showed the first positive growth since July 2018 with a 9.4 percent jump from April and 6.3 percent rise from the same month in 2019 to 1.6 million units.

China produced 1.6 million passenger cars last month, up 5.8 percent from April and a 10.2 percent gain from the year before. In the first five months of the year, it manufactured 5.7 million, a year-on-year drop of 30 percent, and sold 6 million passenger cars, a decline of 27.8 percent.

As overseas supply chains gradually pick up, passenger car output is expected to stabilize this month, the CPCA said. With the restart of auto shows and other promotional events, the market will also break the trend of a June off-season and continue to grow.

Editor: Kim Taylor