The automobile company announced that the average price of next year’s models would decrease four-tenths of one percent, amounting to about $72, as compared with comparably equipped cars and trucks this year.
A. The automobile company announced that the average price of next year’s models would decrease four-tenths of one percent, amounting to about $72, as compared with comparably equipped cars and trucks this year.

B. The automobile company announced that the average price of next year’s cars and trucks would decrease four-tenths of one percent, or about $72, from that of comparably equipped models this year.

C. The automobile company announced that there would be a decrease of four-tenths of one percent in next year’s models price, or about $72, below this year’s comparably equipped cars and trucks.

D. Compared to comparably equipped models this year, the automobile company announced that the average price of next year’s cars and trucks would decrease about $72, less by four-tenths of one percent.

E. Contrasted with comparably equipped cars and trucks of this year, the automobile company announced that the average price of next year’s models would decrease about $72, or four-tenths of one percent.

I have not convinced with OA as B it seems that the average price of next year’s cars and trucks would decrease ... from that of ....... ( it appears semantically shaky or I may be wrong)

A .I presume correct if :- The automobile company announced that the average price of next year’s models would decrease four-tenths of one percent, amounting to about $72, as compared with < subject silent : the average price of> comparably equipped cars and trucks this year
If we read subject as silent that average price is compared and hence compared with

This is GMAT Prep Question

When making a comparison, you must compare apples to apples. You can compare the price of next year's vehicles to the price of this year's vehicles, but you cannot compare the price of next year's vehicles to the actual vehicles themselves this year - that doesn't make sense. And that's what the original sentence tries to do.

You can't assume the "silent subject," as you call it, is there. It has to be stated explicitly in order to make a proper comparison.

The "that of" in B refers to the "average price" already mentioned earlier. So, now, we're comparing the average price of next year's cars to the average price of this year's cars - that's a proper, apples-to-apples comparison.

Also, it's okay to say that the price will decrease from the current year's price, because in this case, that's the same thing as saying "as compared with" - the point is that, whatever the price is this year, it's going to go down a certain percentage next year - from this year's price to next year's price.