According to Auto Express magazine, these are the Chinese brands currently available in the UK, ranked in order of "current and potential" UK market impact: 1. MG, 2. BYD, 3. Chery, 4. Changan, 5. Jaecoo, 6. Leapmotor, 7. Omoda, 8. Polestar, 9. XPeng, 10. Geely, 11. Smart, 12. Lotus, 13. GWM Ora, 14. GWM Hava, 15. GWM Poer, 16. Maxus, 17. Skywell.
I've heard of 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13. I've seen and recognised 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16. Some of these have connections with European manufacturers, of course.
Scary, or what?
Last edited by: James Loveless on Sun 26 Oct 25 at 17:50
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Dacia Spring is Chinese built which is why it doesn't qualify for the UK EV discount.
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Volvo EVs are also Chinese, well at least the EX30.
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And the Cupra Tavascan, Lotus Emeya, Tesla Model 3, Smart #1, MINI Cooper Electric and MINI Aceman.
According to the same Auto Express.
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>> Scary, or what?
>>
For European car mnakers and their supply networks, yes. Which is why the EU has put tarriffs on them, hence them concentrating on the UK market. You could argue that our goivernment should be protecting the UK car industry in the UK too, even if they are all foreign-owned, to preserve jobs.
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>>You could argue that our goivernment should be protecting the UK car industry in the UK too, >>even if they are all foreign-owned, to preserve jobs.
There is a price to be paid for putting up tariff barriers to preserve jobs.
If (say) buying a car, one which would previously have cost £25k may then cost £30k, this may:
- be inflationary - claims for higher pay likely to meet the higher costs, or
- reduce other spending - restaurants, holdays, clothing etc with implications for their jobs
- encourage retaliatory action by the nation impacted by the tariff barriers - China, Korea etc.
You may think the government would have collected £5k in import duties. Sadly if the barrier is effective it may even reduce existing import duties as rather than collecting more.
Unless the business being protected is genuinely part of critical national capabity - cars probably aren't - tariffs simply shift the pain and in aggregate probably increase it.
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Tarriff barriers protect inefficient businesses, undermine competition, are paid by the importers and end users not the country being 'punished', and fuel inflation and as above provoke retaliatory actions. They can work in the short term and and there must be exceptions (preserving strategically important capability for example?) but in general economists think they are a bad thing for prosperity in the long run.
Ontario recently spent $75m on adverts shown in the US objecting to Trump's tariffs. The ads used an old speech by Reagan in which he blamed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs for the Great Depression.
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>> Tarriff barriers protect inefficient businesses, undermine competition, are paid by the importers and end users
>> not the country being 'punished', and fuel inflation and as above provoke retaliatory actions. They
>> can work in the short term and and there must be exceptions (preserving strategically important
>> capability for example?) but in general economists think they are a bad thing for prosperity
>> in the long run.
>>
All that is true, but that assumes the competiton is on a level playing field. Which is not the case with China where the governement is funding them to expand world-wide. So if one is to 'level the playing field' we would need to provide assistance to our car industry. Easier to just slap on tarriffs?
The economic shock-waves from a collapsed car industry (and suppliers) may cost considerably more than any added car inflation caused by the tarriffs?
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>>
>> All that is true, but that assumes the competiton is on a level playing field.
>> Which is not the case with China where the governement is funding them to expand
>> world-wide. So if one is to 'level the playing field' we would need to provide
>> assistance to our car industry. Easier to just slap on tarriffs?
>>
>> The economic shock-waves from a collapsed car industry (and suppliers) may cost considerably more than
>> any added car inflation caused by the tarriffs?
I agree. There are many reasons why China is an exception many of which flow from it being an authoritarian state that makes its own rules re state support, environmental and social considerations etc not to mention a casual attitude to IPR and also it's sheer size in relation to global demand. Crudely it could put us all out of business. So arguably zero tariffs might not even be in China's long term interest.
What is a fair level of tariff no doubt looks different to each side but there clearly is a workable range - everybody needs customers as well as a profit margin.
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Hmmm it's not quite that though, they are paying the EV companies for a share of their quota i.e. buying green credentials from a company which is green
It may be permissible under the rules but it's hardly in the spirit of the legislation, which was framed to help save the planet by phasing out polluting energy sources, not to ensure global entities can keep their customers addicted to their products.
They are kicking the can down the road.
Future generations will pay the price. I've read that global warming is considered to be already making a small contribution to mass migration from hotter places.
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>> Future generations will pay the price. I've read that global warming is considered to be
>> already making a small contribution to mass migration from hotter places.
>>
The world's population has quadrupled in my lifetime. That is unsustainable and perhaps fortuitously the problem - in time - is going to solve itself.
Already, some countries birth rates are dropping, or have dropped below replacement levels. Provided the rate is not too rapid and countries face the challenge of supporting an ageing population, the global warming will be solved by there simply being fewer humans on the planet pumping out unwanted emissions.
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>> >> Provided the
>> rate is not too rapid and countries face the challenge of supporting an ageing population,
>> the global warming will be solved by there simply being fewer humans on the planet
>> pumping out unwanted emissions.
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That's my take on it too. No matter how green we become, everybody who wants a life that is above poverty level will leave a massive carbon footprint during their lifetime.
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Have previously mentioned, my daughter was wanting a Kuga PHEV earlier in year but Ford had a recall on them with warnings not to charge the batteries.
I noticed on the Kuga FB page a few owners saying they were moving to a BYD Seal udmi. So daughter looked at that, joined the FB groups and absorbed all the information.
Bought one herself, think about £32k, at least 10k cheaper than a Kuga, no luxury car tax, better EV range and warranty and absolutely loaded with toys.
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It reminds me of the early-mid 70s when the Japanese manufacturers first really started to make inroads.
We all know what happened to Datsun, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Daihatsu etc, (some did better than others) but were there any failures along the way back then ? I can’t think of any who retreated and gave up.
Last edited by: Armstrong Sidd on Tue 28 Oct 25 at 11:15
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>> It reminds me of the early-mid 70s when the Japanese manufacturers first really started to
>> make inroads.
>>
>> We all know what happened to Datsun, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Daihatsu etc, (some did better
>> than others) but were there any failures along the way back then ? I can’t
>> think of any who retreated and gave up.
Mitsubishi and Daihatsu have packed their bags.
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Around 100 years ago the Americans penetrated the market, but they built factories here and provided jobs (Ford, General Motors). More recently the Japanese did the same (Toyota, Honda, Nissan). But the big difference with the Chinese is not only that that they build to target numbers, not to what the market will take, but also they make them in Asia with cheap labour. They are then apparently dumped onto whichever market will take them, e.g. us, resulting in a much more serious effect on the trade balance.
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>> they make them in
>> Asia with cheap labour. They are then apparently dumped onto whichever market will take them,
>> e.g. us, resulting in a much more serious effect on the trade balance.
>>
Chinese wages are going up but that isn't the main factor. They have brand new highly automated factories many of which have very few people working in them. They use robots for almost everything.
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We chose to keep people in jobs. However that comes with a cost.... which probably, as could likely have been predicted, makes us somewhat uncompetitive these days.
Especially as many of their companies are effectively new starts without the baggage of a huge workforce and manned production lines, which are hard to remove.
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Amazon are shedding jobs fast as they are introducing robots.
Guess who is making the robots?
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AI tells me Amazon Robotics are. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Robotics
But I suspect somewhere the internet says it's those pesky Chinese.
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Other robots - then it will be Skynet!
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>> I can’t think of any who retreated and gave up.
>>
When cars were largely mechanical, with limited electronic components, driving them after the manufacturer disappeared was harder but possible. You can just about keep a Saab on the road, for example.
One of our walking group has an Infiniti. Service parts are fine, but he's finding it very hard to get other spares. Pretty shocking, considering that his was made in the Nissan Sunderland plant!
Mitsubishi are now gone from the UK. I'm surprised that Subaru are still here, considering how few cars they sell.
The big losers, though are people who bought Fisker Oceans. Imagine sitting on a depreciation drop from £50-60k ... to pretty much worthless.
In our attempt to be more environmentally friendly by moving to EVs, we're in danger of creating piles of cars which will just be scrap far earlier than they otherwise might be. I wonder if/when we'll reach the point of a car being scrapped because there is no software update for it?
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Chinese brands - UK market penetration - Lygonos
