CHINA AUTO SALES DROP 24% AS EXPORTS SURGE 78% China’s auto retail sales fell 24% to 1.54M vehicles last month, with YTD sales down more than 20%. At the same time, exports jumped 78% to 888K vehicles and now account for 38% of total sales, up from roughly 20% a year ago. That export shift is becoming increasingly important as China’s domestic price war squeezes profitability. Auto-industry margins fell to just 3.6% in the first seven months of the year, versus 6.5% across China’s broader downstream industrial sector. BYD raised its 2026 overseas-sales target to as much as 2M vehicles and exported more than 184K new-energy vehicles in August. Tesla $TSLA shipped roughly 86K EVs from its Shanghai factory, with about 36K going overseas.