(Bloomberg) — Chinese carmakers’ push into the European electric-vehicle market continued to meet resistance, with their share of deliveries to the region slipping during October in the run-up to new tariffs.
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Manufacturers including SAIC Motor Corp.’s MG and BYD Co. accounted for 8.2% of European EV registrations for the period, according to researcher Dataforce. That marked a decline from September’s 8.5% and the fourth straight month that market share was below year-earlier levels.
After several years of rapid gains in the prized overseas market, the Chinese advance has stalled since July. That was when the European Union set provisional tariffs on Chinese-made EVs that brought import fees to as high as 45%. The added definitive duties took effect on Oct. 30, after months of talks with Beijing and adjustments to the pending rules.
“It does not seem that the Chinese OEMs pushed a lot of volume” in October, as they had in June ahead of the original tariff start date, said Julian Litzinger, an analyst with Dataforce. “It will be very interesting to see what happens in November.”
Discussions continue between the EU and China, but with little progress evident, a deal to replace the tariffs with price undertakings remains elusive for now, Bloomberg News reported earlier this week.
In the meantime, BYD continues to build out its presence in Europe.
For the second month in the past three, BYD outsold MG — long the top-selling Chinese brand in the region — according to Jato Dynamics, which also tracks the automotive market. BYD sales more than doubled in October to 4,630 vehicles from a year earlier, the consulting firm said.
BYD’s ambitious move included a high-profile sports sponsorship during summer. Executive Vice President Stella Li has spent an increasing amount of time in Europe, where the company has poached managers from European rivals such as Stellantis NV.
At MG, whose parent SAIC is state-owned, deliveries fell 56% in October to 3,846 vehicles. Through the first 10 months of this year, the former British sportscar brand remains comfortably ahead, with registrations totaling 63,895 vehicles, nearly double those of BYD, according to Jato.
Trade tensions are becoming a bigger factor in the global automotive industry: Chinese carmaker Chery Automobile Co., for example, has pushed back plans to start building EVs at a refurbished plant in Barcelona.
