I mean it's a bit hard to take away hard data from just monthly sales across the whole of Europe. 10% is a lot, but far from overwhelming, and individual popular models can create big changes in overall stats.
For example, the Brits love their SUVs, and the Jaecoo undercut the market, so that particular model has been selling very well.
I think we should wait and see for stats to stabilize over time. Chinese smartphones did something similar - initially they were way better for way cheaper, but other manufactures adapted, so they failed to grab huge chunks of the market.
The report uses the number of newly registered vehicles AFAIU and correlates them to the total % of Chinese vehicles sold, so that's not really the monthly sales but the general trend, no?
Market cap amounts to 10% as an absolute figure but that isn't what I find most important from reading that article - it is the trend I find intriguing, which doubles or triples by each year, so if such or similar trend continues, Chinese manufacturers will penetrate into the market substantially more.
They innovate at much higher pace at much lower price points and at pretty high quality as the evidence we have so far suggests. So IMO it's going to be hell of a ride for European manufacturers to adapt - they need to start moving faster and deliver at much lower cost. This means complete restructuring which I find hard to believe it will happen any time soon.
Well, I wouldn't extrapolate much from this. Look at what happened to entry level EVs - brands like BYD and MG undercut VW, Kia and others, and their cars came fully loaded with extras missing from Western models.
In response VW and co. dropped prices, so Chinese cars are not that much cheaper again.
Just to understand where I'm coming from - if the Chinese would put out a better car for less money, I would buy it in a heartbeat. But from listening to reviews, as well expert opinion, you don't get better stuff for the same money just by buying Chinese
I don't really see that, perhaps if you could give a reference to the price points it would be clearer but new cars, especially the ones coming from German manufacturers, have never been so expensive. Mid-range vehicle used to be around 35k EUR few years ago and today it is no less than 50k. Upper mid-range is 60-70k EUR. And premium is almost 100k EUR. Chinese vehicles are almost at half of that price point, even with the tariffs that were imposed on them.
> I've heard that mechanics raised similar concenrns about the quality of rust protection as well as the thickness of steel on BYDs.
They have to comply with European standards so something like Euro NCAP safety tests. BYD in particular scores 5 stars across their models so "thickness of steel" sounds exaggerated and subjective.
Wrt rust the most notable example of that issue is Tesla. Many ADAC reports have been made pointing out exactly that problem, however, I haven't seen the same for Chinese models. They may exist though although my personal gut feeling is that this is also FUD.
For example, the Brits love their SUVs, and the Jaecoo undercut the market, so that particular model has been selling very well.
I think we should wait and see for stats to stabilize over time. Chinese smartphones did something similar - initially they were way better for way cheaper, but other manufactures adapted, so they failed to grab huge chunks of the market.