The European Commission (EC) has announced that it is imposing duties on imports of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from China, for a period of five years.
The news comes after British trade minister Jonathan Reynolds announced last week that Britain will not introduce similar tariffs on imports of Chinese EVs.
The EC news follows an anti-subsidy investigation into the imports of BEVs from China. The investigation found that the BEV value chain in China benefits from unfair subsidisation which is causing “threat of economic injury” to EU producers of BEVs.
Chinese car manufacturers have been given different tariffs depending on how much government help the EC believes they get
As such Chinese brands will be subject to the following duties: BYD: 17%; Geely 18.8% and SAIC. Other companies that co-operated with the investigation will be subject to a duty of 20.7%.
Following a request for an individual examination, Tesla will be assigned a duty of 7.8%. All other non-cooperating companies will have a duty of 35.3%.
The EC will monitor the effectiveness of the measures, including making sure they are not circumvented.
The measures will expire at the end of the five-year period unless an expiry review is initiated before that date.
Meanwhile, the EU and China continue to work towards finding alternative, WTO-compatible solutions that would be effective in addressing the problems identified by the investigation. The Commission also remains open to negotiating price undertakings with individual exporters, as is permitted under EU and WTO rules.
