Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Chinese electric vehicle stocks are falling on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that Beijing has “strongly advised” automakers to protect their key technology by continuing production in China, with their — future —European factories handling only final assembly.
As of the time of writing, Nio is trading 7.50 per cent lower while the Guangzhou-based XPeng is down 5.70 per cent. Zeekr, which recently went public, is dropping 3.60 per cent and Li Auto, the carmaker that is preparing to unveil its second fully electric model, is trading 3.50 percent lower.
The report, which cited people familiar with the matter, says Beijing asked carmakers to keep production of the most relevant parts of the vehicles in China while the European plants would be responsible for the final assembly.
As the extra tariffs from the European Commission are likely to be confirmed in November, Chinese EV manufacturers have been speeding up the plans for local production in the old continent to avoid them.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the European Union will soon drop the extra tariffs on Tesla and some other local carmakers after reviewing new data shared by the automakers involved.
SAIC Group, which owns MG among other brands, is the most affected automaker and will see its tariff reduced to 35.3 per cent, down from 36.3 per cent.
Poland, Spain, Italy and Hungary are among the countries where the manufacturers are eyeing to produce vehicles for the European markets.
China has recently opposed to the EU’s measures, naming them protectionist while threatening retaliation across several industries.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
