In her State of the Union address on 13 September, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a new anti-subsidy investigation into electric vehicles (EVs) from China, claiming that the market is being flooded by cheap imports at prices that are kept artificially low by “huge state subsidies”. The move was widely reported to be a reaction to pressure from France; other member states, notably Germany, were opposed.
The commission will now undertake the investigation and probably propose new “anti-subsidy” duties on Chinese imports. Although China is the key external supplies of EVs to the European Union, 60% of trade (by value) is within the EU (see graph). Chinese EVs are reported to only make up 8% of EV sales and less than 3% of total EU car sales. However, there are concerns that low prices will enable them to rapidly increase these figures.
