From January to July, the profit margin of China's automobile industry was only 4.6%. The profit of 30 million domestically produced cars is still not as good as Toyota's.

Recently, Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the Passenger Car Association, issued a document stating that driven by the car replacement and renewal subsidy policy, car production will be 18.08 million units in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 11%. The revenue of the automobile industry from January to July 2025 was 5,919.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8%; the cost was 5,205.6 billion yuan, an increase of 8%; the profit was 273.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.9%; the automobile industry profit margin was 4.6%. Compared with the average profit rate of downstream industrial enterprises of 5.9%, the automobile industry is still low, which has declined from the 4.8% profit margin from January to June.

Among them, the automobile industry revenue in July was 827.5 billion yuan, an increase of 5% year-on-year; the cost was 727.6 billion yuan, an increase of 5%; the profit was 29.3 billion yuan, a decrease of 17% year-on-year; the automobile industry profit margin was 3.5%, a significant decrease from June, and a decrease from 4.4% in July last year.

Some experts previously said that "30 million Chinese cars are less profitable than Toyota", which caused an uproar. Judging from the above data, this situation seems to continue to exist.

Some experts pointed out that the total profit from selling 30 million cars in China is not as good as Toyota's net profit from selling more than 9 million cars, and manufacturing capabilities have not been converted into profit capabilities.

There are many factors causing this situation, such as the large number of Chinese car companies and fierce competition; the unsynchronized industrial transformation, the compression of profits from fuel vehicles, and the investment in "smart electricity" is still difficult to make a profit in the short term.

In addition, the imbalance of the market structure and the low-end products have also led to low profits for Chinese car companies.

At present, my country's automobile industry has achieved a historic leap from being dominated by traditional fuel vehicles to being led by new energy vehicles. Along with this, the profits of Chinese automobiles will change from "reliance on foreign investment" to "independent creation", and from "reliance on petrol vehicles" to "smart electric creation". This structural change is more meaningful than a simple comparison of profit figures.