Image source: Visual China

BEIJING, May 25 (TMTPost) -- Great Wall Motor confirmed in a statement on Thursday that it filed a report with China’s regulators on April 11, alleging that BYD Qin PLUS DM-i and Song PLUS DM-i use normal-pressure fuel tanks and are suspected of having substandard evaporative pollutant emissions.

On the back of the statement, BYD’s share price plummeted, with A-shares down 0.7% and H-shares down 1.7%.

The report was handed over to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Great Wall Motor is now closely following regulators’ response to the report, according to the statement.

"This is exactly what I want to see. Mutual monitoring leads to mutual progress. The Chinese auto industry will be more innovative and this is good news. The top enterprises should lead by example and shoulder their responsibility!" a reader of TMTPost commented.

BYD responded by saying that it firmly opposed any form of unfair competition, and as the world's first company to launch plug-in hybrid car products, its products meet national standards and were certified by national authorities.

The models mentioned by Great Wall Motor are two of BYD's most competitive ones. Public data shows that BYD sold up to 300,000 Qin PLUS DM-I models in 2022 and at the end of February this year, the championship version of the model was released, with its price below 100,000 yuan for the first time. The lower price resulted in the soaring orders of Qin PLUS DM-I, making it the sales champion in April, with 31,734 units.

In April this year, BYD Song PLUS DM-i ranked fourth among the compact SUV with monthly sales of over 20,000 units. The BYD Song family is the sales champion in the SUV market, with sales of 33,000 units in April and cumulative sales of over 174,000 units in the first four months of 2023.

BYD sold a total of 703,000 units in the first four months of this year, an increase of nearly 80% year-on-year, with a market share of 12%, ranking first in the manufacturers' retail sales list.

Great Wall Motor's Haval H6 was the best-selling SUV for years, but that spot has been taken by BYD's Song family of models. In 2022, Great Wall Motor sold 1,061,700 units, down by 17.12% year-on-year.

Great Wall Motor is trying to recapture the lost share in the SUV market with new model launches, making the Xiaolong line of plug-in hybrid SUVs available on May 16, offering the Haval Xiaolong as well as the Haval Xiaolong Max models. The Haval Xiaolong is a compact SUV competing with the Song Pro DM-i series, while the Haval Xiaolong Max is a mid-size SUV rival for the Song Plus DM-i series.

With BYD Industrial founded in 1995 as its predecessor, BYD has relied on the battery business since its inception. Headquartered in Shenzhen，it expanded its business to electronics, automobile and photovoltaic sectors. In 2021, the company sold 594,000 NEVs, securing the championship of domestic NEVs sales. BYD was listed in the H-share market and the A-share market in 2002 and 2011, respectively. The company has a market value exceeding 600 billion yuan, the highest among

Chinese automakers, and ranks first among the top 500 global independent automobile brands.

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