Car sales slumped in China in March as the country’s measures to curb the spread of coronavirus weighed on the automakers’ output, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

According to data, the Chinese market for automobiles fell 11.4% from last year’s level to 2.23M vehicles in March. This despite sales having increased sharply by 18.7% in the month prior.

Chen Shihua is the CAAM’s deputy secretary general. He stated, “The pandemic crisis has been extremely severe in recent times and the numbers in March weren’t too good. We currently don’t see any improvement in April.”

Shihua claimed that the manufacturers of cars were asking for assistance from the authorities through new measures such as a reduction in car purchase taxes.

Omicron’s variant spread quickly across China. Beijing has been urged to tighten security and lockdowns. Some automakers including Tesla have had to temporarily shutter their facilities.

Tesla (NASDAQ) stopped production at Shanghai’s assembly plant March 28. Volkswagen (DE) followed suit in suspending operations at Shanghai joint venture in April.

Tesla made just 55,462 cars in February when it had to stop production for 2 days. This was just 154 more than during the 28-daylong February. The EV-carmaker produced 68,117 units last January.

New data showed that Tesla shipped 65,814 Chinese-made vehicles in March. This is an increase of 16.5% MoM. Tesla exported 60 electric vehicles due to strong local demand.

Shanghai authorities announced that Monday’s lockdown would be relaxed in parts of Shanghai to help revive it after two weeks of strict measures.

The lockdown has significantly affected Shanghai residents, pressuring the city’s authorities to reduce the measures as some people struggle to access food and medicine.

Shanghai will organize its residents in three risk categories to make it easier for people who reside in areas without Covid cases to do “appropriate activities” over the next two weeks.

Gu Honghui, a Shanghai official said that each district would announce the names of the initial batch (of communities) which will be divided into three types. Three subsequent lists will also be published in a timely fashion.

The city is divided into seven thousand twenty-four areas, which are currently under lockdown. A second group of two hundred and sixty-five neighborhoods will be reviewed once there have been no new infections for a week. After two weeks of zero infections, measures will be relaxed for the remaining 7,565 prevention areas.

Tesla stock is now down almost 4% since pre-opening Monday.

By Senad Karaahmetovic