Still riding high? The wind and waves are rising for Chinese car companies to go overseas

"It's better to export than to implode" is a very popular phrase this year.
From the export volume exceeding 2 million units in 2021 to 3 million units in 2022, Chinese car companies are going out of the country in a big way. At the recently held 2023 China Automotive Forum, Sun Xiaohong, Secretary General of China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products Automotive Branch, predicted that China's automotive exports are expected to exceed 4 million units in 2023, and the value of exports will exceed the $80 billion mark.

　　For a time, China's auto exports exceeded Japan to ask the world's first change, by the community widespread concern. However, Sun Xiaohong reminded, according to the export amount ranking better reflect the actual situation of China's auto exports. "China's auto exports in the actual position, should be ranked third or fourth."

On the other hand, although the prospect of going overseas is very good, there are many thorns along the way. Starting from 2022, external risks such as international geopolitical conflicts are rising sharply, including trade policies, product access, green barriers, data compliance, etc., all of which pose considerable challenges to Chinese automakers seeking globalisation.

　　It is worth mentioning that China will replace Turkey as the EU's top source of car imports in 2022, but recent rumours in the industry suggest that Europe may consider anti-dumping investigations into Chinese electric cars in order to protect its own auto industry.

　　In the heavy challenges, Chinese car companies to go overseas can still soar? From "products to the sea" to "globalisation of the value chain" leap, Chinese car companies and how far?

■ EU anti-dumping, countervailing investigations?

　　According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), China's auto exports reached 3.111 million units in 2022, up 54.4 per cent year-on-year, of which 679,000 new energy vehicles were exported, accounting for about 22 per cent of the total.In the first five months of 2023, the volume of automobile exports was 1.758 million units, up 81.5 per cent year-on-year.

　　In the past two years, China's new energy vehicle enterprises will be the European market as the first big export region, behind the main reason is that Europe's policy support for new energy vehicles, Europe's strong performance of new energy vehicle market, superimposed on China's new energy vehicle industry chain is perfect, the scale of the advantages of the obvious factors to promote more and more of the new energy vehicle enterprises "seafaring" in Europe.
      However, China's new energy vehicle enterprises strong sea also let the European Union have scruples. Recently, a French media news that the EU plans to launch anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese new energy vehicles.

　　According to Eurostat, Chinese cars will account for only 2.9 per cent of the EU car market in 2022. "This proportion is still very small, this year's forecast is up to about 3.4 per cent of the situation. We do not understand why the EU is so worried about China's new energy vehicles." Sun Xiaohong believes that the EU and China's new energy vehicle development, mainly due to the development stage is caused by the mismatch, because China's new energy vehicle development is relatively early, so much so that when China's new energy vehicle policy measures began to retreat, it is the EU and the United States of America new energy vehicle subsidy growth. Therefore, this stage, whether from the model or quality point of view, the EU believes that the competitiveness of China's new energy vehicles highlights, so the EU internal voice.