The European Union (EU) has finally given the green light to new import taxes on Chinese electric cars. We are talking about the countervailing dutiesgenerally referred to as “tariffs”, although that is not the precise term, which emerged after a year of anti-subsidy investigation promoted by the community bloc to protect its industry.
The regulation that establishes compensatory duties was posted yesterday tuesday late in the afternoon and came into force today, Wednesday, October 30. As we can read in the text, not all manufacturers will be subject to the same taxes. These will range between about 8% and just over 35%, which will be added to the 10% rate that the EU already has for vehicle imports.
How are the “tariffs” on the Chinese electric car from the EU?
|
Manufacturer |
additional “tariff” |
|---|---|
|
SAIC |
35.3% |
|
Geely |
18.8% |
|
BYD |
17% |
|
Other cooperating manufacturers |
20.7% |
|
The rest of the manufacturers |
35.3% |
The countervailing duties, which have been rejected by several European countries, go beyond manufacturers of Chinese origin. As we can see in the table above, they include vehicles from the American manufacturer Tesla coming from the Shanghai Gigafactory. The rate that has been established in this case, however, is the lowest that we can find, as it stands at 7.8%.
BYD, which has become China’s leading electric car manufacturer and continues to gain ground in Europe, is now caught at a rate of 17%, Geely at 18.8% and SAIC at 35.3%. The rate for other manufacturers that cooperated with the investigation will be 20.7%, while the rest of the companies whose electric vehicles originate in China will be 35.3%.
It should be noted that we have reached this point without unanimous agreement. Germany, the largest vehicle producer in the EU, opposed countervailing duties in a vote held earlier this month. The proposal also was rejected by five other members; 12 abstained, including Spain, and 10 voted in favor of deploying the “tariffs” for a period of five years.
Overall, the European Commission concluded that Chinese subsidies to electric car makers were causing harm to the bloc’s industry. “These subsidies have allowed subsidized imports to rapidly increase their market share,” we can read in the resolution published on Tuesday.
But China has not sat idly by. The Asian giant has begun to respond to these stockingspointing directly towards the countries that supported it. According to Bloomberg, Beijing is seeking to have its companies pause investments. Changan and Dongfeng, for example, would park their investments in Italy. In time we will know how all this will evolve.
Images | BYD (1, 2) | Alexey Larionov
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