China forecast to have sold one in every 10 new cars in UK in 2025 | Automotive industry
Chinese brands will account for one in 10 new cars sold in Britain by 2025; There is a significant increase compared to last year, with sales increasing across Europe.
Manufacturers, led by MG, BYD and Chery, are on track to surpass the 200,000 mark in new car sales in the UK by 2025, according to analyst Matthias Schmidt, who tracks electric cars across Europe; This means they will likely make up 10% of the market.
Schmidt said Spain and Norway also buy a tenth of their new cars from Chinese brands, and the average across Western Europe is 6%.
China has become a leader in the global industry for electric vehicles (EVs) thanks to years of heavy government subsidies, dominance of the lithium-ion battery supply chain, and cheaper labor. The surge in Chinese sales has alarmed EU countries, particularly Germany and France, who fear losing millions of automotive jobs if the industry shrinks.
Norway is the world leader in electric vehicle purchasing, helped by generous purchase subsidies; However, the majority of Chinese cars offered in Spain and the UK are hybrids that combine a petrol engine with a small battery.
Tu Le, founder of consultancy Sino Auto Insights, said: “The Chinese are fighting the EU region by region because there is support in some regions and opposition in others.”
Neither the UK nor Norway imposes tariffs on imports from China as the EU does, leaving them open to selling battery cars.
According to the Association of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, a lobby group, Chinese manufacturers sold 187,800 of a total of 1.87 million cars in the UK in the first 11 months of the year; This is double last year’s sales.
Schmidt said Britain was a particularly interesting target for Chinese brands because it was a large market without mass-market champions. Rover ceased trading in the early 2000s; Vauxhall is part of the Stellantis conglomerate, while MGs are produced in China by state-owned SAIC.
“With a lack of truly local brands for UK consumers to choose from, UK consumers will no longer be able to engage in what is known as patriotic buying,” he said.
“In Germany and France, half of each country’s new car market is actually controlled by domestic brands. In China, we see that two-thirds of the market is now created by domestic brands.”
It turned out that the manufacturers who lost their UK sales were Japanese. Nissan and Toyota have factories in the UK, but that didn’t stop them losing almost a percentage point of market share last year. Honda and Suzuki sales also dropped, while Mitsubishi withdrew completely.
In order to equalize the competitive environment, the EU imposed customs duties of between 17% and 38% on Chinese electric cars last year. However, the tariffs only apply to electric cars, leaving a huge backdoor for Chinese manufacturers to gain market share by also undercutting hybrid sales from European manufacturers.
Schmidt’s analysis showed that less than 40% of all Chinese-branded models entering Western Europe in the third quarter of 2025 will be fully battery electric. This means that the design of EU tariffs allows Chinese manufacturers to continue to undercut their European rivals, while also pushing them to sell more polluting models.
The EU recently watered down its electric car sales targets, saying it would allow 10% of sales to have internal combustion engines after 2035; had previously planned to ban them entirely. European carmakers have lobbied hard for the changes, arguing that they need to continue selling gasoline and diesel cars to make enough profits to invest in battery-powered car factories.
But some auto executives and analysts argued that slowing the transformation in Europe would allow Chinese automakers to advance further. Schmidt predicts that between 2028 and 2030, the share of Chinese manufacturers across Europe will rise to 10%, while China’s share of the battery car market will peak at 13%.
