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In January 2024, the Ukrainian car market saw a significant decrease in demand for passenger cars from China. In total, Ukrainians purchased 819 new and used cars imported from China, which is 40% less than in January 2023, according to statistics from Ukravtoprom.
Causes of the collapse
New Chinese cars were purchased at 674 units, down 24% from a year earlier. Used cars saw an even bigger decline, with a total of 145 units sold, down 69%.
Notably, the absolute majority of passenger cars from China were electric vehicles — 82% of total sales. This highlights the trend of increasing popularity of environmentally friendly vehicles among Ukrainian drivers looking for alternatives to fuel-powered cars.
Experts say one of the reasons for the market collapse was an attack by Russian hackers, which caused Ukrainian state registries to be out of service for a long time. This almost completely paralyzed the used car market. Also, buyers of new models could not sell their old cars, so they also postponed new ones.
But against the background of the overall growth of the Ukrainian electric vehicle market in January, it is obvious that the reason for Ukrainians' cooling off towards Chinese cars is not only the blocking of state registers.
TOP 5 new cars from China in January 2025:
- BYD Song Plus — 155 units;
- Zeekr 001 — 59 units;
- Zeekr 7X — 41 units;
- Volkswagen ID.4 — 39 units;
- Audi Q4 e-tron — 39 units.
TOP 5 used cars from China in January 2025:
- Zeekr 001 — 18 units;
- Zeekr 7X — 15 units;
- Polestar 2 — 11 units;
- Volkswagen ID.4 — 10 units;
- Audi Q4 e-tron — 8 units.
