The European Union is on the verge of instituting higher tariffs on Chinese automakers over unfair subsidies, on top of the existing 10% tariff already in place. Is Europe going to actually pull the trigger on this tariff? Maybe. There are a lot of reasons why Europe could back down at the last minute.
What will Great Britain do? Since it’s no longer geographically, politically, or emotionally part of Europe, the great island nation of Great Britain will have to make its own deal with China. At the moment, the deal is that many Chinese cars are coming over, including BYD at one of England’s biggest car events.
In terms of exports, VinFast is currently only shipping cars to the United States but has plans to build a $4 billion plant here, though the unpopularity of its vehicles is maybe putting that idea on hold. Finally, it looks like the new electric Jeep will be made in Mexico.
About 29% Of German Cars Were Sold In China Last year
29 Percent. That’s the important number here if you’re Germany.
As pointed out in this Reuters piece on Europe maybe making a deal with China, German automakers need China. It is, essentially, the second home for German cars.
Here’s another interesting number from the International Council on Clean Transportation’s recent report on Chinese-German automotive entanglements: 17%. That’s the market share that German automakers have in China if you include local-built, German-branded cars (by comparison, Chinese automakers had a 3% market share in Germany).
What does this all mean? Back to the Reuters piece:
The China Chamber of Commerce to the EU, a trade group, said last week Beijing was considering hiking tariffs on large-engine car imports to 25%. China has also floated the idea of lowering tariffs on EU auto imports to 10% from 15%, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
This is all carrots and sticks.
China’s stick is a 25% large-engine car tariff aimed squarely at Germany, which is the main country bringing big-engined vehicles into China. Specifically, BMW has seen China as a huge market, having moved over 820,000 of its BMW and Mini vehicles there (up 4.2% year-over-year).
At the same time, the idea of lowering tariffs on European imports to China would likely have an immediate and positive effect on sales and/or profits. This is a powerful carrot.
All of this takes care of Germany, which is the biggest economy in Europe. What about France? France is in a tougher position. It doesn’t export as much to China in terms of automobiles, though it exports plenty of other products (ahem cognac). France, via Renault and Stellantis, also rely more on European sales than German automakers.
So what carrot does China have besides taxing cognac? France is trying to build up its battery industry in the “Battery Valley” of Northern France, and Chinese automakers are actively investing money there. So there’s a reason for France to blow with the wind if, indeed, the wind is blowing from Beijing. Italy? Semi-Italian automaker Stellantis is already running around saying it’s ready to be Chinese. And, of course, Hungary is getting a BYD plant.
We’ll see what Europe eventually does, but there’s an argument to be made that China and Europe have more to gain in the short term by working together than working at cross-purposes. Remember, China also needs European automakers, and one way to slow the expansion of super cheap Chinese EVs in Europe is just to make the cars more expensive (and, therefore, more profitable for Chinese companies).
The Goodwood Festival Of Speed Welcomes BYD
The Goodwood Estate in England, the home of Rolls-Royce, is also where some of the best (and most British) automotive events in the world take place. There’s the amazing Goodwood Revival in the fall and the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the summer. I’m especially excited for this year’s Festival of Speed because many of your Autopian favorites will be going.
It sounds like it’ll be my chance to see a bunch of BYD’s new offerings, as Goodwood has partnered with the automaker to host a bunch of debuts at the event:
BYD will showcase its brand-new BYD SEAL U DM-i, a plug-in hybrid five-seater SUV. This is BYD’s first plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) model with BYD’s Super DM (Dual Mode) Technology in Europe. The D-segment family SUV is designed as a spacious, practical, safe, and comfortable family car, full of advanced intelligent PHEV technology that prioritises electric power benefiting energy efficiency, ultra-low fuel consumption and overall driving performance. The all new BYD SEAL U DM-i makes its UK debut in Autumn this year, with an ultra-low fuel consumption bringing all the benefits of electric driving to eco-conscious customers who enjoy long-range journeys. Alongside this, the popular BYD ATTO 3, BYD DOLPHIN and BYD SEAL models will be on display, highlighting BYD’s diverse range of sustainable and innovative vehicles.
YANGWANG will unveil and dynamically showcase its new hardcore off-roader YANGWANG U8 and the breathtaking high-performance supercar YANGWANG U9 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. These vehicles represent the pinnacle of luxury and performance, showcasing YANGWANG’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of automotive innovation. The YANGWANG U8 features cutting-edge technologies, including the e⁴ Platform and the DiSus-P Intelligent Hydraulic Body Control System, which elevate the U8 Premium Edition’s off-road prowess and safety. Unique features include VOT function (Vehicle Origin Turn), tyre blowout stabilisation, and emergency flotation, ensuring unparalleled safety and exceptional performance. The hybrid U8 boasts 1,200 horsepower and can sprint from 0 to 62mph in just 3.6 seconds.
We’ve already written about both the Yangwang U8 and Yangwang U9, so it’ll be nice to see both in person. Will the United Kingdom follow the EU with more tariffs? As reported by The Telegraph, maybe?
“The issue I think most people are concerned about, that our concern is about [is] cost and competitiveness.
“We have very robust measures in this country, with a trade remedies regime which deals with not just the car industry but all markets, about making sure we have fair international trade, and that we don’t have dumping or unfair subsidy.
“So I think we have a good legal structure. That is the structure that will make sure that that competition is fair and that there’s a level playing field.”
This government might be on the way out in a couple of months, so it may be worth waiting until then to decide what the UK is actually going to do.
VinFast In North Carolina? Not So VinFast…
Between bad reviews and slow sales, Vietnamese automaker VinFast has not had a great launch here in the United States. It was supposed to ride a wave of EV love in the United States that has only slowly materialized and has been, mostly, to the benefit of automakers with production in the United States.
One of VinFast’s big announcements in 2022 was that it would build a plant in North Carolina’s Chatham County to take care of Inflation Reduction Act subsidies. Is that still going to happen? Potentially not.
Per Reuters:
The company had initially planned to complete the factory in July 2024 but later pushed back the start of operations to 2025. It is considering another delay, the source said, asking to remain unidentified because the matter was not public.
VinFast, which sold fewer than 1,000 cars in North America last year, said in a statement to Reuters it was “conducting a thorough review and evaluation of all aspects of the construction process for our North Carolina factory.”
North Carolina is a potential swing state in the upcoming election, so look for this to potentially become a political issue.
The Jeep Wagoneer S Will Be Built In Mexico
The Jeep Wagoneer S is Jeep’s first EV and, while we’ve seen pictures, there’s an official debut in New York later this week. I don’t think we’re going to go, but we’ll be ready to write about it when we get more information.
Now, thanks to Automotive News, we know the vehicle will be built in the Stellantis facility in Toluca, Mexico, where the Compass is currently built:
The Wagoneer S will be Jeep’s first electric vehicle for the U.S. and Canada when it arrives this fall. Availability will later expand to other markets as the brand’s first global EV.
The Toluca plant currently builds the Jeep Compass. The Wagoneer S joins several other EVs from the Detroit 3, including the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Chevrolet Blazer EV, that are made in Mexico.
Thanks to revised trade deals (USMCA), cars built in Mexico can qualify for subsidies.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
David and I were driving around listening to Rod Stewart the other day and it struck me just how many bangers that Rod Stewart has. Just an impossible number of hits. “The First Cut Is The Deepest” and “Young Turks” and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” and “Forever Young” and about a million others. There are the covers (he does a great Tom Waits cover of “Downtown Train”) and the songs he did with Faces (“Three-Button Hand-Me-Down” and “Ooh La La”). What a guy.
The Big Question
What will Europe do? What would you do?
“What will Great Britain do? Since it’s no longer geographically, politically, or emotionally part of Europe…”
I’ve had a few days off the internet, have I missed something? Has the UK stopped being part of geographic Europe somehow?
We’re not in the EU any more but then neither are Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine, Monaco, Iceland and a load of other European countries. It doesn’t change continental geography.
This particular part of Britain definitely feels emotionally part of Europe too.
As to what the UK does about China and tariffs I’d say, based on recent governmental decisions, something half-arsed and poorly thought out. Is there an option that totally fucks us for no benefit? If so, probably that.
Rod also sang in the Jeff Beck group. When I saw them, the PA broke down, so Rod just shouted over the band. Amazing.
Does David know who Rod Stewart is?
Re. Tariffs: since the Chinese government has a lot of power over its industry, it may be able to make its domestic automakers agree to a voluntary 10-15% price increase instead. The goal of fewer sales is achieved, the automakers make more money.
Chinese Buyers don’t actually want EV’s, but car registration is significantly easier for those than ICE Cars.
Also, most cities in China only allow the use of an ICE car on specific days according to your plate number as a way to control pollution.
It’s enforced via camera and toll booths located at the entry and exists of expressways.
VinFast, ugh. I never thought they’d even break ground on their manufacturing plant here in Chatham County, NC. I was wrong – they did clear away the trees. But they haven’t started building anything yet. Then, the delays were announced. Then more delays. I predict they never build it. Thanks for the note on the potential political fallout on this – I hadn’t considered that angle. Not sure if the Democratic Governor or the Republican Legislature will get the blame. Or will both blame each other?
On a positive note, the Toyota EV battery factory plant in Liberty, NC is still coming along well, with a potential $13.9B expenditure promised by Toyota.
https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-supercharges-north-carolina-battery-plant-with-new-8-billion-investment/
Maybe the state can pay Volkswagen to take over the unfinished plant? That usually works out very well, just dont ask Pennsylvania
It’s crazy to me that paying the Cartel tax and the associated risks is still /cheaper preferable to using American workers.
New all time high prices though for us in the good ol’ USA!
I’ve maintained that the drug cartel model is the desired endpoint for corporations, as they’re totally independent of external forces and too large to compete with in the market, which allows them unlimited license to exploit their market.
I’m sad to see I might be right actually. Why else move to Mexico if not to take lessons from that model? Mexicans unionize just as Americans do.
I really have no idea, but the words “Thank you sir may I have another.” come to mind. In other words I think that whatever they do isn’t going to amount to much.
I’m starting to picture all this as Europe yelling “Tariffs!”, and the US yelling “Tariffs!” and China holding up a big middle finger to each while yelling “Belt and Road, Bitches!”. Their years of debt diplomacy, IP extraction, currency manipulation, and various other shenanigans seem to have set them up pretty well for whatever’s ahead.
As to what I would do if I were Europe? Probably something that benefits me and my citizens. Maybe let folks have access to those cheap EVs provided China is okay with me building some new nuclear plants to power said EVs and then shipping the waste back to China. Not sure how economical that is on account of just making it up, but I’d try to be creative.
Do they really say “bitches” in Mandarin?
What will Europe do? My best guess is that they’ll be leaving together but still it will be farewell and maybe they’ll come back to Earth, who can tell? There’s no one to blame that they’ll be leaving ground but the question is, “will things ever be the same again?”
It’s the FINAL COUNTDOWN!!
Deedle-dee-dee!
Deedle-dee-dee-dee!
Oh thank geebus, I was hoping someone would get it 😉
Worst Cover Ever
What.
The.
Fuuuuuu…
Best*
Why is there no front wheel on the yellow car?
They were showing off their advanced suspension system, where the car can stay level and drivable even on 3 wheels (and also bunny hop all 4 wheels off the ground simultaneously): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDG5bDRNkcc
Many years back I had a conversation with Long John Baldry. He went on an extended rant about what a POS Rod Stewart was. Really bad blood stuff. It was hilarious.
Hold on hold on, are you saying Europe, and specifically Germany, has tied itself dangerously to an authoritarian regime? No way!
It’s like watching Merkel’s decisions to signal about green energy while shutting down all the nuke plants and switching to energy reliance on… Russia. Great work. But at the end of the day they’ll stand up and scold everyone else while caving to some authoritarian regime to which they’ve stuck themselves.
If I’m a European leader, I’m learning Mandarin Chinese. Then telling them the tariffs are staying until they can responsibly source minerals and shut down the Uyghur slave labor camps. To which they’ll reply stop ordering us around. Nope, not buying stuff made with slave labor or “artisinally” mined.
Everyone is against child labor, but what about Artisanal Child Labor?
Ooh, artisanal child labor is the best.
Art Is anal
The Goodwood festival is awesome but the last couple years have seen some truly dull vehicles go up the hill. I doubt anybody watching wants to see some chinese EV suv lumber its way up the hill with only noise from its poor quality tires.
I was at Festival of Speed in 2022. It was by far the best automotive event I’ve ever been to and I’d gladly go back any year but the new car block was usually my cue to go wander around the pits until the vintage cars and more interesting stuff came back out to do their runs. Luckily between that, the rally stage, and everything else going on, you won’t get bored while you wait for the latest and greatest EV SUVs to finish up
If it was me as Europe, I’d get rid of the chicken tax so then the US would remove it’s corresponding tax and we can get some dang mini-trucks again!
Oh also stop China somehow maybe, I dunno, it’s not just China flooding Europe with EVs, Kia only sells the Soul EV there because that’s where the money is, so where’s the line?
The Chicken Tax is so far removed from its original purpose that any European action on chicken imports would have no impact on it whatsoever, it’s purely a domestic matter vis a vis the UAW (even the automakers themselves would probably be in favor of at least reforming it, so as not to restrict their global manufacturing decisions)
If nothing else, I think the Chicken Tax needs to be rewritten so that it does not apply if the imported vehicle is in a segment in which there is no North American equivalent. Nobody on this continent makes small vans anymore, so bringing them in from overseas will not impact any jobs here. QED.
It will if somebody who just needs a van for their business decides to buy the cheaper and more efficient/economical small import that’s more closely tailored to their needs instead of the bigger, more expensive, oversized domestic van they would have bought instead if it was the only option available
Which is the point of it now, automakers don’t want to sell smaller, cheaper vehicles themselves, they want people to take out bigger, longer-term loans to buy larger, expensive models. And the UAW doesn’t want anyone importing smaller, cheaper options, because that might jeopardize jobs at the factories that build the big, expensive ones.
The established automakers dont want the competition, either, but they wouldn’t mind the flexibility of importing tariff-free trucks for themselves from time to time when they decide it makes sense
Fun fact: Rod does not sing lead vocals on “Oh La La,” those are handled by future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood
Wow!
I am a MASSIVE Faces fan. Even love the first couple solo records of Rod’s, mainly because they’re basically Faces albums lol.
If you really wanna hear Rod shine, look up the version of the Faces doing Maybe I’m Amazed live at the BBC
…or In a Broken Dream with Python Lee Jackson.
Also, “The First Cut is the Deepest” is a cover. It was written by a very young Cat Stevens.
Forever Young is also basically a cover of a Bob Dylan song, though it wasn’t acknowledged as such until Bob engaged in some litigation.
My English teacher in 9th grade was named, no joke, Rod Stewart. He had a perm and wore his shirts with the top 2-3 buttons undone, exposing gold chains tangled in an impressive amount of chest hair.
He got the nickname “Strut” because of how he would walk back and forth at the front of the class. He would (obviously) strut one way, then do this bizarre pivot on the heel of his pointy cowboy boots, walk the other direction and repeat.
The girl who sat next to me, Julie, despised him. She found a book on witchcraft and attempted to put a hex on him.
The junior high I went to fed into Permian High School, of Friday Night Lights fame. One of the characters from the movie, Ivory Christian, was in my English class, and ol’ Rod dubbed him Ivory Snow.
Rod also showed us the 1968 movie Romeo and Juliet. When the nude scene was coming up, without even looking up from the book he was reading, Rod said “There’s a nude scene coming up. If you don’t want to see it, don’t watch.”
He hit on my girlfriend’s mom at the gym pretty aggressively, but he was also the guy who got me to go into AP English, so overall, Rod was kind of a mixed bag.
I have little knowledge of this other Rod Stewart…
That is an amazing story…
I may be close to your age and all I could think reading this is, before every kid had a phone with a camera and social media on it, teachers were allowed to be so much more weird.
I know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows from the past and even though that guy would maybe have done some things that he shouldn’t, it definitely made better memories than everyone being less… memorable?
It’s true. Circa 1993 when I was a HS freshman, we had a teacher who would throw a 3-hole punch at you if you weren’t paying attention. Hi goal was to bounce it off your desk in front of you, but if he missed…shrug.
I also had a history teacher who was a wiccan, and she’d talk about it in class. Super nice lady, I really enjoyed her class.
Thirty years later, I still remember these teachers like it was yesterday. My “normal” ones, not so much.
I had a history teacher who yeeted sticks of chalk at offenders in his class. Good aim. He’d probably be in prison today.
Yeah, I had another memorable teacher at that school.
She taught biology, and we had a lot of fun in that class. Learned a lot, too!
We dissected a fetal pig, and Sean, a kid in class, took the large intestine home and inflated it with an air compressor. It exploded all over his garage.
When we dissected a frog, I took our skeleton home, put it in an empty box of Cheez It crackers, and stuck the box back in the pantry to scare someone in my family. Next day, box gone. To this day, no one in my family has EVER admitted to finding the frog skeleton.
The last unit in that class was the life cycle of plants. We all got a bean, a cup, and some dirt, and were supposed to observe and document it growing. Well, my lab partner, Scott, and I, our bean never sprouted. So on the last day of class, we snuck into the bio room early and replaced our defective bean plant with a tomato plant Scott got from a nursery. So our teacher is going around looking at everyone’s progress, then comes to our table. Everyone has, like, a 2″ tall sprig with one leaf, and we have a foot tall plant with multiple branches and leaves. She looked at us, and Scott, with a totally straight face, says “We mutated it with radiation.”
We got an A.
Then, two years later, she got busted with a bunch of 9th graders in her Mustang convertible as she was buying beer for them at the 7-11.
So yeah, teachers with character can be a real mixed bag.
Speaking of meeting folks with celebrity names I once met a guy named Michael Knight, for real, I saw his ID. When I mentioned it he told me that back in the 80s he dated a girl named Kit and she drove a TransAm. Dated? DATED?!? As in past-tense no longer dating, dated?!?!?!? I told him that was kismet and he was a fool to let her (and her TransAm) get away.
I also have an aunt named Sharon Stone but my Michael Knight factoid is far more entertaining 😉
I used to work with a guy named Jimmy Stuart. He drove a mint ’59 Edsel convertible. He retired years ago, but he’s still around and doing well from what I hear.
On the way back from camping in the Sequoias over the weekend I drove past a very empty Vinfast dealership in Bakersfield. Selling unknown Vietnamese electric cars in the oil-rich agriculture-heavy California Central Valley is a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for them.
If you wanna have a car selling victory, you gotta grab it by its haunches and hump it into submission.
The central valley was a huge resettlement area for Cambodian, Vietnamese and other S-E Asian refugees, so maybe that’s the angle?
Yeah, a lot of SE Asians who, if you managed to put together a convincing enough presentation, would swear off food and air because it was a communist plot direct from Hanoi/Phnom Penh.
Guess which party has anti-communist credentials, a surplus of salesmen and con artists, an armed wing and an anti-environment agenda?
So we tax the shit out of Chinese cars to protect US manufacturers, to whom we then give incentives to move their production to Mexico.
The goal is not creating or preserving living wage jobs. The goal is maximizing the amount of monetary extraction from the American people.
Cheap Chinese EVs are a threat to the existing model of monetary extraction that exists today, a model that benefits both the U.S. government as well as U.S. manufacturers, and which picks the pockets of all working Americans or anyone who needs a car to get around.
It’s an intentional policy decision.
Yes
But, also, it is arguably also in the US’ best interest for Mexico to become as wealthy and successful as possible, given the rather extensive land border we share with them and how heavily intertwined our countries inevitably have to be
Yes that was definitely the intention of NAFTA. Not at all a massive corporate welfare program and giant FU to US workers…
Yes, Mexico is famous for its wealth equality…
We’re invested in “fixing things” there? Since when? We gonna do Operation
IraqiMexican Freedom first, against the“axis of evil”cartels?Yes. It would be ideal if the whole rest of south and central america became more wealthy compared to the US and Canada so that there was less economic immigration. Personally I would rather see our closest neighbors benefiting from trade with the US and Canada than China.
I can’t imagine we’d still have any agriculture here if all of a sudden Mexico and Central America became wealthy. Or other things no ‘murican would want to work in.
That’s what machines are for.
After all, Mexico needs to become richer so they can pay for the wall as agreed.
Well SOME folks in Mexico have become “as wealthy and successful as possible”.
Exactly why I’m not in favor of these tariffs. The only jobs they’ll protect are at the C-level while the companies will try to undermine the workers any chance they get.
The USMCA was a great deal, the best deal.
Europe will not institute any serious tariffs. They might do some minor tariffs so they can say they didn’t fold like a pop-up picture book. China needs to sell cars in Europe and Europe needs to sell stuff in China. Europe will sacrifice their low price car industry to keep higher end products flowing to China.
Yangwang. That has to be the best name ever. Too bad they didn’t name the car the D8, or better yet the 8D, potentially with a weird space filled by == in between the characters.
I know people who specialize in branding western products for the Chinese market. There’s lots of cultural connotations to think about, and some pretty obvious pitfalls to avoid. I do not know of anyone who does the reverse, but dear god that is an industry with growth potential.
Someone needs to sit down with the nice folks at YANGWANG and politely but firmly explain that their brand name translates as “small penis” in English speaking countries, and LITERALLY ANY OTHER BRANDING would improve their sales by an order of magnitude minimum.
No please no! I would be far more interested in purchasing it as is, unless you mean for them to change it from the U8 to the 8D, at which point I am so on board!
A lifted brodozer with like stock 34″ rims and the de rigeur angry face styling- Presenting the YANWANG 8D! Perfect for all your rugged mall-crawling needs!
Yes!!! I have many thoughts, none of which are appropriate so I will not expand on this idea, but I am definitely supportive!
Yang means small?
“Someone needs to sit down with the nice folks at YANGWANG and politely but firmly explain that their brand name translates as “small penis” in English speaking countries”
No, someone needs to convince them to build and sell a line of angry faced plus sized pickups and SUVs so we can finally get some truth in marketing over here.
I dunno, I’m kinda partial to calling it the PP.
I am ok with this suggestion.
Imagine being so naive to believe that China will allow BMW and Mercedes to keep importing so many vehicles forever.
Remember when Buick was one of China’s biggest brands? I do.
I predict Europe will have no backbone as usual, but they should be as aggressive as the US in fighting back against Chinese trade practices.
Also, China needs (or at least did need) foreign car manufactures to build in China.
Those manufacturers… need to be linked with a Chinese manufacture.
Meaning, China needs foreign cars, so it can know how to build cars.
The era of Chinese companies needing others to learn how to build cars is over, and has been over for about 5 years now. Nowadays, domestic manufacturers make cars better suited to Chinese tastes than foreign manufacturers are choosing to make.
Also, China no longer requires a domestic joint venture partner for manufacturing “new energy” vehicles, a foreign electric (or, even hybrid) automaker can move in and own 100% of their Chinese operations.
But, that rule was relaxed in part due to the recognition that Chinese automakers no longer needed foreign partnerships and no longer have anything to fear from foreign competition, so, what the hell, let Tesla fully own their own factory, BYD isn’t losing sleep over it
This! Many moons ago I worked for a small specialty US manufacturer and we knew we had ‘arrived’ when Chinese knock offs of our product started showing up online. One of our Sales Reps ordered it and sent it to us. It looked very close but was total garbage quality…no threat there.
I worked at a place that had a Chinese knock-off design a design-flaw into their product that never got designed out of the original product. That’s when you KNOW they are blatantly copying what you are doing.
So, I understand that reverse engineering is a thing and that they’ve been doing copycat work for a long time, but I would argue that they don’t really need the West to sell cars there to copy them. If you just want to reverse engineer and copy something, all you have to do is go buy one or two to use as samples. You don’t need to allow them into your domestic market.
China can make it very difficult to straight up import stuff in. They want you to set up ‘joint’ operations and manufacture the stuff in China, using China suppliers and China workers….and now they have the whole operation set up/sourced courtesy of us….more valuable than just reverse engineering.
Buick is no longer one of China’s biggest brands because they did the typical GM thing where they don’t update their product and it becomes obsolete. While they’ve updated their gas cars to some extent, Chinese buyers really want EVs and PHEVs, and Buick’s Ultium EVs have been severely outclassed by their competition, both Chinese and foreign brands. This means that most of their lineup is obsolete and they need to resort to fleet sales and discounts to move product.
China’s government will allow those brands to import vehicles, but their sales will drop as domestic competition is very tough at the moment.
It isn’t a question of allowing or not allowing, Chinese consumers stopped buying Buicks because domestic Chinese brands got so good for less money that there was no longer a compelling reason to buy Buicks, Buicks are still readily available and being made in whatever quantities the market will absorb, if people want to go back to buying them
The advantage to the Germans is that, obviously, BMW and Mercedes have much stronger snob appeal as aspirational brands, which will keep a certain number of customers flowing even if the hard numbers of price/performance/quality aren’t in their favor, but that only lasts as long as it takes for Chinese luxury brands to rise to the level where they’re widely seen as true equals or superiors in status, which may be about happening already