China's car market 'financial battle' begins: over 20 automakers launch ultra-long loans

Source: Mysteel Mar 06, 2026 09:33

On the eve of the 2026 Chinese New Year, a customer surnamed Chen, a post-95 office worker from Dongguan, South China's Guangdong province, finally purchased the Xiaomi YU7 he had been eyeing. What convinced him wasn't the vehicle's modest price drop of tens of thousands of Yuan, but Xiaomi Auto's newly launched 7-year, 84-installment ultra-low-interest financing plan. With the standard model priced at Yuan 253,500 ($36,752), monthly payments could be kept around Yuan 2,600 -- comfortably within his Yuan 8,000 monthly salary.

"If I had opted for a traditional 5-year bank car loan, the minimum down payment would have been Yuan 50,000, and the monthly installments would exceed Yuan 4,500. I just couldn't manage that," Chen said. Chen's car-buying experience reflects the intense financial competition in the car market at the start