Europe faces Chinese cheap car ‘invasion’, Vauxhall owner warns
By Paul Homewood
If you wanted to destroy an industry, I can’t think of a better way to do it!
Stellantis boss says carmaker will struggle to compete with cheap Chinese EVs
Vauxhall owner Stellantis has warned of a coming “invasion” of cheap Chinese cars as it pressures its suppliers to cut costs to compete.
The firm, which also owns Peugeot, Fiat and Jeep, will also use its heft to demand lower prices from partners as it tries to bring down the cost of electric cars.
Chief executive Carlos Tavares, who has been outspoken before on the high cost of battery-powered cars and the risk they pose to the mass ownership of cars, said suppliers should prepare to comb over their businesses and cut costs as he has done.
He said Stellantis faces a “brutal scenario” where it must compete with Chinese-made cars which are a quarter less expensive while having to invest billions into electrification. Mr Tavares told a French radio station that China’s export ambitions amounted to an “invasion”.
Chinese carmakers are targeting European markets including the UK with predominantly electric cars, undercutting companies like Volkswagen and Stellantis.
Big firms including Warren Buffett-backed BYD; Chery, which makes Land Rover models in China; and Great Wall through its Funky Cat brand plan to sell their cars in the UK.
Cheap labour costs and a much more mature supply chain for battery components in China puts the country at a distinct advantage.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Politicians and Deep State denizens have been warned repeatedly over the years of the negative impacts of their climate-fear-driven deindustrialization madness. Escalating energy costs and shortages along with regulatory red tape make it impossible to compete with low-cost foreign suppliers.
The car makers ought to be making what the actual market needs and wants i.e. petrol and diesel, also CNG and start fighting back against the imbecile politicians who are obsessed with attacking mobility and wrecking the economy.
Wonder if those Chinese have worked out how to transport their EVs on ships. European exports combust.
Chinese evs may be cheaper than European models but their sales will still suffer from lack of range, lack of power infrastructure, high insurance costs, and, most importantly of all, the inherent danger of any Li-ion battery, which should/will restrict their use to open roads only:
Watch this Australian video of Professor Christensen of Newcastle University, UK, warning of the dangers :
Start at 1:01:45
How many more credible warnings are our leaders going to ignore in their reckless pursuit of net zero. If they are afraid to confront the climate alarmists they’d better be ready to be dealt with by people who know about the climate and are cold, hungry and broke.
China’s coal consumption in 2022: 88.41 ExaJoules
Europe’s total energy consumption in 2022: 79.81 ExaJoules
Source: Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, page 9.
Any country with a sizeable population that wants EVs needs coal, a crazy amount of it. The one exception is France but then it wouldn’t be able to export its nuclear to Britain which’d quickly make South Africa look well run.
So what did the Vauxhall boss expect- like the other car makers he has sat back and accepted the bonkers deadlines this country has imposed without putting up a fight. Whilst we have been outlawing all our cheap/ reliable energy sources, China has been opening up coal mines, without challenge, at a rate which enables them to produce energy at a fraction of the price we are forced to pay in the West. The Eco nutters have turned this country into an industrial has been and anyone who speaks against them is outlawed and called a climate denier.
Sadly, I fear it is already too late for anyone to stop China’s march towards industrial world domination and the Western world’s descent into total dependence on goods made in China.
So, forcing EVs on the public means forcing them into Chinese cars . . . domestic production be damned.
Is it a coincidence that Mourice Storng spent the end of his life in China after starting the UN environmental movment and ever since the world has been pushed in to ever more ridiculous decisions that favour China?
One solution would be to keep selling ICE vehicles. Just saying.
Manufacturers should have been listening to what the market actually needs and wants i.e. ICE and fighting back against the politicians long ago instead of just giving in and making less practical EVs in the first place.
Also disgraceful that the motoring organisations such as AA, RAC and their equivalents in other European countries seem to have forgotten about their members.
>>One solution would be to keep selling ICE vehicles
Sadly, virtue signalling trumps common sense.
“Funky Cat brand”
When these are available in the USA and I am in a retirement home — I want one!
‘Cheap labour costs’
Never trust such an assertion from Lefty press. They don’t know. It’s part of their narrative.
The UK, amongst others, have knowingly allowed key industries to be exported to China for decades; there appears to be no leverage that politicians ( already “bought off” ) are willing to apply to Chinese exports. I know from a dear departed aquaintance that to do business in China he had to surrender a great deal of IP during the period he traded with China. If there was a reciprocal requirement does anyone think Xi Ping would happily comply?