Business | Plugging away

Chinese marques try to make inroads into Western markets

Second time lucky?

A NIO electric car factory in Hefei, China, Dec. 4, 2020. With government support and lavish subsidies, Chinese companies have come to dominate the market for the batteries, motors and other essentials that Detroit may need in its push to eliminate gasoline and diesel cars. (Keith Bradsher/The New York Times)Credit: New York Times / Redux / eyevineFor further information please contact eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20 8709 8709e-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com

Oct 13th 2022

The failure of the first serious attempt by China’s carmakers to conquer European markets, around 15 years ago, was self-inflicted. Their cars were terrible. The shabby quality of Brilliance’s “bs” range (no joke) was matched with looks that scarcely merited the word “design”. Since then the Chinese car industry has become the world’s biggest and its products have improved immeasurably. It churns out more electric vehicles (evs) than any other country, and many are anything but bs. It is also an ev-battery superpower.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Plugging away”