On British Roads, Chinese
Cars Are Racing Ahead
BYD, Chery and other Chinese automakers
are winning over drivers in Britain, where tariffs are low and buyers are open
to new brands.
Chinese
automakers are rapidly gaining market share in Britain, reshaping the country’s
car market with competitively priced, feature-rich electric and hybrid
vehicles. Brands such as BYD, Chery and Geely are finding strong acceptance among British buyers, helped
by low tariffs, weak brand loyalty, and the absence of a major domestic
mass-market carmaker.
·
Price advantage: Britain levies a uniform 10% tariff on all
imported cars, far lower than the 100% U.S. tariff or up to 45% EU tariffs on Chinese electric
vehicles.
·
Consumer openness: UK buyers are less brand-loyal than those
in Germany or France, making them more receptive to new entrants.
·
Product appeal: Chinese vehicles offer strong performance
and premium features at lower prices—often 15–25% cheaper than comparable
Western rivals.
For
example, the BYD Seal Excellence accelerates from 0–60 mph in 3.8 seconds
and costs about £48,000, roughly 20% less than a top-end Tesla Model 3.
According
to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Chinese automakers
accounted for 13% of new car registrations in Britain last month—double their share a
year earlier.
Autotrader notes that brands like BYD and Chery are
gaining market share five to six times faster than earlier foreign entrants such as
Tesla in the 2010s or Kia in the 1990s.
·
SAIC Motor-owned MG now holds over 4% of UK new car
registrations.
·
BYD has reached just over 2%, roughly on par with
Tesla.
Veteran
dealer Dougal Keith, who opened one of Britain’s first BYD showrooms in Leeds
in 2023, now operates six BYD dealerships and recently added outlets for Changan. Sales momentum has
been driven by the expansion from all-electric models into plug-in hybrids,
which better suit long-distance driving.
Customers cite:
·
Long driving range and lower running costs
·
Advanced in-car technology (touchscreens, voice controls,
wireless charging)
·
Strong value compared with European luxury brands
Britain’s
domestic auto production has fallen to about 600,000 vehicles this
year, roughly half the level of the late 2010s. Major producers
include Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover, and Mini.
Globally,
China has become the world’s largest car exporter, supported by
large-scale EV production and export-oriented policies aimed at easing domestic
overcapacity. While this has triggered protectionist backlash in the U.S. and
EU, Britain has so far kept its market relatively open—and Chinese automakers
are capitalizing quickly.
Bottom line: With competitive pricing, rapid dealer
expansion, and receptive consumers, Chinese car brands are moving from novelty
to mainstream on British roads—at a pace the UK market has rarely seen before.
On
a recent Monday, Dougal Keith drove an electric car out of his dealership’s showroom
in Leeds, in northern England, and hit the accelerator.
The
car, a Chinese-made BYD Seal Excellence, can reach 60 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds
— a key selling point. Another is the price tag, about 48,000 pounds ($64,400),
which is 20 percent cheaper than a top-range Tesla Model 3.
Mr.
Keith, who has been selling cars for more than four decades, said customers were
skeptical of buying vehicles made in China when he opened
a showroom in 2023 for BYD, China’s largest automaker. Now, he has six dealerships
devoted to the brand.
“Some
people have the perception that because it's Chinese it’s going to be made cheaply,”
he said. But then, he would ask them, “Where do you think your iPhone is assembled?”
Chinese
cars are rapidly gaining ground in Britain, driven by a combination of factors.
The lack of steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles — unlike in the European
Union or the United States, where officials see the levies as a way to protect domestic
production — means the cars can be sold in Britain at better prices. And British
car buyers are not particularly loyal to brands, with no major mass-market British
carmaker to support.
Last
month, roughly a dozen Chinese automakers, like BYD, Chery and Geely, accounted
for 13 percent of new car registrations in Britain, roughly double their market
share a year ago, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and
Traders.
“The
pace is like nothing the market has ever seen before,” said Ian Plummer, the chief
commercial officer of Autotrader, Britain’s largest online car marketplace. BYD
and Chery, which sell brands Jaecoo and Omoda, are gaining market share in Britain five or six times
as fast as previous entrants, like Tesla a decade ago and South Korea’s Kia in the
1990s, he noted.
Britain’s
domestic auto manufacturing industry has been in decline for years, and produced
about 600,000 cars so far this year, about half the pace of production at the end
of last decade. The largest producers include Japan’s Nissan; Jaguar Land Rover,
owned by India’s Tata Motors; and Mini, which is part of BMW.
China
has grown to become the largest car exporter in the world, making inroads in countries
as far-flung as Mexico, Brazil, Malaysia and South Africa. China produces far more
electric vehicles than any other country, and its automakers have proved adept at
meeting shifting regulations and consumer preferences, gaining market share with
in-demand hybrids as well.
Beijing
has encouraged exports as a way to deal with overcapacity at home, which has led
to cutthroat competition and substantial losses. The surge of Chinese exports has
triggered a backlash in Western countries with large domestic auto industries.
U.S.
tariffs of 100 percent on Chinese electric cars have effectively banned the
vehicles there. The European Union has imposed tariffs of up to 45 percent on battery-powered
vehicles from China.
Britain
has not erected similar trade barriers, instead levying a 10 percent tariff on all
imported cars. The British government has been pursuing closer economic ties with
China.
Around
two million new cars are sold in Britain every year. Since 2019, the number of different
brands registering sales has nearly doubled, to more than 70, according to Autotrader.
No single brand commands the same loyalty, or market share, as Volkswagen in Germany
or Renault and Peugeot in France.
Chinese-made
cars got a jump start in Britain thanks to SAIC Motor, a Chinese state-owned carmaker,
which acquired the British sports car brand MG after its collapse in the mid-2000s.
More and more production was shifted to China until, in 2016, SAIC closed MG’s factory
in the Midlands, the center of British car manufacturing.
MG
cars imported from China accounted for more than 4 percent of new registrations
in Britain so far this year, the largest share for a Chinese-owned brand. BYD accounted
for just over 2 percent, about the same as Tesla.
Mr.
Keith, the auto dealer in Leeds, sold his first car at age 16 in 1980. Over the
next decade, he gradually took over his father’s gas station and repair shop, which
also sold Skoda cars, then made in Communist Czechoslovakia. In the early 1990s,
he took a bet on the brand and opened a showroom just after Skoda was acquired by
Volkswagen but before it gained a reputation for value and reliability.
By
the early 2020s, China’s BYD had caught Mr. Keith’s attention. With a group of other
independent dealerships, he pitched the automaker and two and a half years ago became
one of the first franchised dealers for the brand in Britain.
Initially,
it was “very hard work,” Mr. Keith said. Few car buyers had heard of BYD, and he
offered only an all-electric model.
But
as more models came out — particularly plug-in hybrids — sales increased. His sales
staff emphasized the fully loaded vehicles’ perks, with rotatable touch screens,
wireless phone chargers, voice controls and even karaoke features.
Customers
“are beginning to understand it’s not a budget brand,” said Fozia Siddique, who
has been selling BYD cars since the Leeds showroom opened.
Ms.
Siddique recently helped sell a new BYD plug-in hybrid S.U.V. to Steve Vine. He
bought the car, which retails for about £33,000, in part because of its spaciousness
and the battery’s long range. Mr. Vine, 55, regularly drives more than 300 miles
from his home near Leeds to the southwest coastal region of Cornwall, and wanted
to be able to do so without needing to stop and charge for too long.
In
Derbyshire, Roger Lyons, 60, recently bought a £48,000 electric BYD Seal Excellence
after trying out models from Audi, Hyundai and Porsche. The BYD was “as nice to
drive almost as a Porsche, and it’s got more toys than any of the other cars,” he
said. His accountant had urged him to switch to an electric car to save on fuel
costs, since his penchant for used luxury automobiles left him with two Audi sports
cars that can be pricey to run and maintain.
Encouraged
by the success of his BYD dealerships, this month Mr. Keith opened two locations
to sell cars made by Changan, a Chinese state-owned automaker.
Next
year, Mr. Keith expects sales at his company, which runs 28 dealerships selling
a variety of global brands, to hit about £500 million, more than 50 percent higher
than in 2024, boosted by the demand for Chinese cars.
In
September, the BYD dealership in Leeds sold more cars than any of his other dealerships
in the area. “It’s pretty good going for a brand that two years ago nobody had heard
of,” he said.