Now that Europe has announced tariffs on China-made electric cars, the continent is bracing to see if the other shoe drops.
It’s a little bit like seeing a slow motion traffic accident unfolding,' Jens Eskelund, the president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China said earlier this year. 'The accident has not happened yet and ... it is still possible to find an off-ramp. It is getting urgent.
How big an impact the provisional tariffs would have on Chinese EV sales is unclear. Some Chinese companies might still be able to sell at a profit, even with duties as high as 30%. The provisional tariffs range from 17.4% to 38.1%, depending on the carmaker, and come on top of an existing 10% tariff on vehicles. The new rates would pose a serious market barrier to Chinese EV exports, the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU said.