Let’s play a quick game. How many of these brands have you heard of?
XPeng, GAC Motor, Aion, Geely, Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Jaecoo, Leapmotor, Nio, Changan, Skywell and Jetour.
If you said none, or one, you’re far from alone.
Yet all these brands – manufacturers of new cars, based in China – are all on the radar to launch in Australia by the end of next year. No kidding.
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The Chinese car industry is huge, cut-throat competitive, fascinating and thriving – propelled by a domestic market of more than 1.4 billion people, and with its eyes fixed on exporting to the world. That’s especially as its domestic market softens, as it has done so in recent times. And in China, electric cars are already king.
In the late 2000s, China bet that one day, the world would switch to electric cars. It invested heavily in the technology. And now, that time has arrived. China has the electric cars, and they’re starting to come to Australia – by the boatload.
To the credit of Chinese designers and engineers, electric cars developed in the Land of the Dragon are very good – amongst the best EVs in the world, it must be said.
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Chinese electric cars are so good, and so cheap, that Western powers-that-be – including the US and the European Union – see them as an existential threat to their own new car industries who might not be able to compete directly. Just this week, US President Joe Biden announced an incredible 100 per cent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles for the US market.
EU officials – fiercely protective of their own car industries, and suspicious of China’s government using subsidies to unfairly cheapen its electric cars – are pondering harsh tariffs of their own.
It’s hard to imagine how Australia, of course no longer with its own car industry to protect, could apply anything similar to Chinese-made electric vehicles. Meaning many will be heading here. And are heading here.
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More brands and models of course mean more choice for the consumer, and better bang-for-buck. There’ll be new hybrids, SUVs, performance models, dual-cab utes, off-roaders and of course more electric cars than you can poke a fork at. New cars are much safer than old ones too, potentially meaning people can buy a new car with modern safety technology, than an older secondhand one – for the same money.
Half the stuff in your house already is made in China.
That’s even if it’s all potentially concerning news for the existing, approximately 50 car brands viciously competing like piranhas for the relatively small Australian new-car-market pie.
While it will take them time to set themselves up proper, it’s hard not to see how, at the current rate, Chinese brands won’t dominate the Australian new car market in a decade’s time – something that will ultimately be determined by the Australian consumer.
What do you think about the influx of Chinese brands into Australia? Let us know in the comments or join the discussion on social media.
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