Overseas car makers were very welcome to open new factories in China, they were told, where there was a burgeoning domestic middle class to sell to but they could only do so in joint ventures with local companies.
Those local manufacturers have since learned very ably how to build cars without foreign help, and they have the advantage that, unlike most European car makers, they also happen to be leading tech companies. That means they can now do the software and the hardware. As a result, the 31 million cars China makes a year is the biggest number by any nation in the world by three to one over the next biggest, the US. It turns out, too, that Chinese buyers would gladly have a local, rather than foreign, badge on their bonnet.
Do we by which I mean British omnibus passengers care the same way about who makes our cars? The influx of Chinese EVs here, following an Uber-style rollout of undercutting and rapid expansion to achieve market dominance, suggests not. A shame. We’re encouraged to buy and support local with things like our food. Why not our vehicles?
I wonder if British omnibussers differ from those in, say, the US, Japan, Germany or South Korea, because our big car industry players have been foreign-owned for decades. British buyers can choose a locally built car with a Nissan badge, or a Chinese-badged car that might still be built in mainland Europe (BYD’s Hungary factory comes online next month).
If they think their responsibility as a consumer ends at buying the best-value, most competitive product for their family’s needs, how much, personally, will they care either way? How much should they?
In other ‘legacy’ (for want of a better word) car-making countries, the streets are more dominated by domestic-built, domestic-owned products, in the way that ours (unfortunately in my eyes) are not. But even local support won’t insulate them from very good Chinese cars and what European car makers believe is legislation supporting them.
Mercedes-Benz’s CEO, Ola Källenius, last month said zero-emissions targets could collapse the European car business. “We need a reality check otherwise we are heading at full speed against a wall,” he told German newspaper Handelsblatt.
