TMTPost -- Chinese auto brands registered more than 23,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) across the European Union in June, the most ever monthly registration, just ahead of the elevated tariffs on EV imports from China in the bloc that took effect last month, data from market researcher Dataforce showed.

Credit：Xinhua News Agency

Chinese brands seized 11% of the electric vehicle (EV) market in Europe in June by sales, according to Dataforce. The record high registration represented a 72% jump from May, which was twice the month-over-month (MoM) increase in overall EV registration in the Europe for June. SAIC Motor led the registration jump of Chinese brands, shipping its MG4 hatchback to dealers in volume, analysts at Dataforce said. However, around 40% of the MG4s registered in June were self-registrations by dealers — “not a very healthy growth,” said Gabriel Juhas, head of product at Dataforce. BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, are making progress in the European market, driven by a marketing push centered on the Euro Cup Championships held in Germany. June saw 13,366 MG vehicles sold in Europe with a 8% year-over-year (YoY) increase, while BYD sales surged 350% YoY to 3,958 units, according to Jato Dynamics.  

The introduction of EV incentives introduced in Italy was another driver of the European EV market. About 200 million euros in new-EV subsidies ran out in less than nine hours, and  about 60% of them was tapped by families and the rest by companies, the the Italian government said. Sales in the country soared 117% YoY to 13,714 EVs in June, while sales in Germany, the largest economy of the EU, dropped 18.1% YoY to 43,412, the European AUtomobile Manufacturers’ Association estimated.

The EV data in June reflected how manufacturers raced to beat the upcoming tough tariffs. Car registered prior to July 5 could be sold on to customers without the additional provisional tariffs.  The European Commission announced on July 4 it imposed provisional countervailing duties of up to 37.6%, on top of the ordinary BEV import duty of 10%, on imports of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from China. The commission concluded through an anti-subsidy investigation that the BEV value chain in China benefits from unfair subsidization, which is causing a threat of economic injury to EU BEV producers.

Specifically, the additional individual duties on three sampled Chinese EV makers, would be 17.4% for BYD, 19.9% for Geely and 37.6% for SAIC. That means the EU decided to levy a little bit less duties on Geely and SAIC-made EVs since its proposed rates pre-disclosed on June 12 are 20% and 38.1%, respectively, while BYD, China’s largest EV manufacturer, faces the same tariff rate as EU’s original proposal disclosed more than a month ago.

According to a statement of the European Commission, other BEV producers in China, which cooperated in the investigation but have not been sampled, are subject to the 20.8% weighted average duty, marginally downgraded from the commission’s original proposed 21%, while all other BEV producers in China that did not cooperate in the investigation face an extra duty of 37.6%, compared with the originally proposed 38.1%.  

The European Commission suggested the long-term definitive duties will be effective no later than four months ago, if approved by EU countries. All the abovementioned provisional duties are applied for a maximum duration of four months starting from July 5. Within the four-month timeframe, a final decision must be taken on definitive duties, through a vote by EU Member States, and when adopted, this decision would make the duties definitive for a period of five years, the commission said.