Dragons at our door ( in their cars )

As Mike Bell of RBC BlueBay Asset Management points out, Chinese-owned car brands are now the second-largest group in the UK market by new registrations year to date.

The UK is a particularly useful market to monitor. It has no mainstream domestically owned car manufacturer, limiting patriotic purchasing bias, and—unlike the European Union—does not impose additional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

The chart shows how rapidly the competitive landscape is changing. Brands such as Jaecoo, BYD, Chery and Omoda are gaining market share, while several established German, Japanese and European manufacturers are losing ground.

German-owned brands remain the market leaders, but China’s automotive expansion is becoming a major structural economic trend. Europe’s automotive engineering base—one of the continent’s most important sources of industrial know-how, employment, exports and wealth creation—is increasingly under attack. The implications are particularly profound for Germany, whose economic model remains heavily dependent on the automotive sector.

Can Europe defend one of its most important engines of prosperity?