beijing chinas auto market has rebounded smartly from the covid19 crash in recent months executives said on saturday as a rare inperson trade show was dominated by talk of recovery in the worlds biggest car marketwhile conditions have improved vastly from lockdowns that froze economic activity in the country where the pandemic erupted the beijing autoshow is a far cry from the usual ebullience as fewer attend new models are scant and prospects remain uncertaindoubts remain over the durability of the recovery but the focus for now is on bright spots such as strong demand for midsized to large luxury vehicles and a flood of interest and investment in electric vehiclesthe recovery in the chinese market has been very remarkable and our key segments have returned to the previous years level if not slightly better nissan motor co ceo makoto uchida told a news conference via a video link from japani expect this rebound to continue but we need to watch for signs of trouble said uchida who announced japans secondbiggest carmaker would launch a number of new vehicles in china over the next five years as it struggles to return to profitchinas auto sales rose 116 in august from a year earlier the fifth straight monthly rise after plunging during the lockdownwhen almost all residents were told to stay home in february sales collapsed by a record 79 to their lowest since 2005executives at germanys bmw and guangzhoubased gac which has partnerships with toyota motor corp and honda motor co forecast fullyear sales growth in china while chongqing changan automobile predicted the same for its local joint venture with ford motor cogreat wall motor co chinas top pickup truck maker aims to boost overseas sales this year helping to ease an overall drop caused by covid19germanys audi ag is in talks with longterm partner china faw group corp about creating a second joint venture to build electric cars on its ppe platform in china germanys automobilwoche reportedlimited upsidechinas typically busy carbuying season golden september silver october is off to a good start according to preliminary data with passenger car sales up 12 in the first 20 days of septemberthe rebound means this years sales will fall less than 10 the china association of automobile manufacturers estimates better than its may forecast of a 15 to 25 declinemuch of the upturn is driven by sales of larger passenger cars by makers such as daimler ag and bmw boosted by new models automakers discounts and a broader recovery in the worlds secondlargest economypremium vehicles accounted for a record 15 of the chinese market in august up from around 10 for all of last year the china passenger car association saidelectric vehicles are also providing buzz to the beijing show as a boom in tesla shares has propelled interest in chinaev startups such as nio xpeng li auto and wm motor have together raised more than 8 billion this yearbut the recent improvement reflects chinese carmakers making earlier model launches