UPDATE: Brussels statement confirms new provisonal duties on Chinese EVs
The EU will reportedly notify carmakers this week that it will provisionally apply new duties (import tariffs) of up to 38% on imported Chinese electric vehicles from next month.
The Financial Times newspaper reported the widely expected news of new tariffs for Chinese cars, citing people familiar with the matter. The duties applying to imported cars to the EU’s trade bloc currently stand at 10%. Most analysts expect Beijing to react to the EU’s move with counter duties applying to EU products.
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The new duties for Chinese OEMs would be applied to manufacturers at different rates, according to the FT report.
The FT report said that BYD would incur a 17.4% additional rate, for example. It also said that manufacturers who co-operated with the EU investigation but have not been sampled for individual rates would be subject to a 21% average rate.
However, the FT reported that those companies who had not cooperated with the EU investigation would be hit by a 38% additional tariff rate, on top of the existing 10% duties – for a 48% overall import tariff total.
The EU is expected to officially disclose the new tariffs later, due to what it says are excessive subsidies, the FT report said. There are also concerns that the Chinese auto industry may be engaging in ‘dumping’ EVs in export markets in response to domestic manufacturing overcapacity.
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The EU Commission’s anti-subsidy investigation was launched in October and the bloc can impose provisional anti-subsidy import duties nine months after the start of its investigation – under WTO rules.
A big hike to the EU’s import tariffs on Chinese cars (the common external tariff level applying to new cars imported to the EU from any territory without a bilateral trade deal is set at 10%) would likely meet retaliation from Beijing – something that could harm automotive companies with big interests in the Chinese market and industry.
Chinese car companies such as BYD are targeting the European market with relatively low-price electric cars which analysts say European OEMs will struggle to compete with.
GlobalData analyst Justin Cox told Just Auto: “The competitive threat from Chinese made BEVs with very low price points is coming ahead of the long-term market transition from combustion engines to electrified powertrains.
“It’s obviously a huge opportunity for Chinese exports, but trade blocs exist to protect their strategic economic interests and industries and that’s what the EU will be looking to do. However, it’s something of a balancing act to ensure that any protective measures do not provoke a level of retaliatory actions that damage the interests of the very companies they are trying to protect and make globally competitive.”
