EU tariffs are on the horizon. So discriminatory against Chinese electric vehicle companies, but still want to learn Chinese technology? The layout of Chinese electric vehicle companies in Europe in advance reflects how much helplessness there is under the new situation between China and Europe? The EU takes all the winners, and China has prepared the stick!
Discriminating against Chinese car companies, but still want to learn China's electric vehicle technology?
On the one hand, out of the political need to suppress China's development and protect its own auto industry, the EU announced on June 4 this year that it would impose import tariffs on all electric vehicles in China from July 4. On the other hand, due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the EU has also deepened its dependence on the United States, but this is not in line with Europe's strategic autonomy line.
After the announcement of high tariffs on China's electric vehicles, the first to bear the brunt of the impact is not China's electric vehicle companies, but the traditional car companies in Germany, a major manufacturing country in Europe, because it is foreseeable that China will inevitably carry out reciprocal countermeasures to Europe's behavior, and impose high tariffs on European fuel vehicles, which is equivalent to the European Union calling for battle in front, but the damage has hit Germany's head.
At the same time, German automotive experts also warned that using tariffs to block the entry of China's electric vehicles will not only make German consumers unable to obtain cheap enough electric vehicles, but also directly affect the transformation of Germany's local new energy industry, prompting the decline in demand for new energy vehicles in Germany.
What is even more puzzling is that the European Union, after being so hostile to China's electric vehicles, still wants Chinese electric vehicle companies to set up factories in Europe.
European countries want to set up factories for electric vehicles in China, and the thoughts behind them have to be guarded against
According to a report by Reuters on June 10, Hungary, Italy, Spain and other countries are now actively promoting incentives to attract investment from Chinese electric vehicle companies and establish local production lines.
The report further pointed out that although the production cost of China's electric vehicles in China is very low, in order to establish brand effect and reduce transportation costs, Chinese electric vehicle companies are still keen to set up factories in Europe, an electric car priced at 15,000 euros in China, often need to pay an additional cost of 500 to 3,000 euros for transportation, at the same time, Chinese companies are also well aware of one thing, that is, if they want their products to be able to arouse the interest of European consumers, then these cars must be made in Europe.
Under the combination of various factors, we can understand the real reason for the EU's tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, that is, through this discriminatory trade policy, to adjust the proportion of Chinese electric vehicles in the EU auto market, with ultra-high additional tariffs, to increase the cost of Chinese locally made electric vehicles into Europe, forcing Chinese electric vehicle companies to deploy industrial chains in Europe, learn from China's electric vehicle technology, and then promote the new energy transformation in Europe.
From the EU's point of view, this is clearly a winner-takes-all approach, which does not completely exclude China's electric vehicles, but also indirectly improves the EU's local electric vehicle manufacturing technology, which is equivalent in nature to the joint ventures that China has established with foreign companies over the past few decades. Therefore, to a certain extent, this route is actually to accept China's technological advantages in electric vehicle companies, and want to use China's "chicken" to lay the EU's own eggs, the abacus can be said to be very loud.
Although through this cooperation, Chinese electric vehicle companies can also take advantage of the trend to complete a series of layouts in Europe and obtain real European market access permits, but a large part of the profits in Europe will be used to create jobs in Europe, which also involves relatively sensitive technology transfer agreements, plus the political environment within the EU is relatively disordered, especially after the European Parliament elections this year, Europe's collective rightward turn has become an inevitable trend, and its own exclusive characteristics, It will greatly affect the normal operation of Chinese companies in Europe, and there is already a precedent for Trump to actively undermine trade rules in the West, and China has to guard against these potential cautions.
The EU thinks too beautifully, and China has prepared the stick
At the same time, in the perception of the EU, they seem to take the tariffs imposed on Chinese cars as a matter of course, thinking that China will break its teeth and suffer this dumb loss, but this is obviously too beautiful, and the confrontation and cooperation between China and the EU have always been one yard to one yard.
As early as a few days ago, the Global Times has said that China's domestic dairy industry has sent a request to the competent authorities to conduct relevant countervailing investigations on some dairy products in the EU, and in 2022, the total dairy trade between China and the EU will reach a scale of 2.2 billion euros. China has prepared the stick in advance.
Anyway, we can also see this move of the European Union, at the moment when China and the United States have completed the industrial layout, Europe and the United States are extremely eager to enter the blue ocean industry of new energy vehicles, but at the same time they are unwilling to become vassals of the United States, so they can only seek help from China, but because of the leading position in technology in the past few decades, we have always been unwilling to pull down our faces, and take the initiative to lower our posture to seek cooperation with China, so there is a loss of additional tariffs, forcing Chinese enterprises to make corresponding adjustments in the industrial layout in accordance with the wishes of the European Union.
In the short term, the EU's actions can be quite rewarded, but in the long run, it also allows Chinese electric vehicle companies to see the true face of Europe.
At this stage, although there is confrontation between China and the United States in many strategic areas, there are almost no major conflict points between the two sides in the electric vehicle industry, because the trade volume is scarce, and Biden's previous high tariffs are more like a political statement, and the United States has very low fuel taxes, after industrialization, there is no burden of carbon emissions, large-displacement cars can be seen everywhere, and the United States also has a local electric vehicle company Tesla as a pillar, the American car market itself is a monolith, therefore, Perhaps in the next phase of the European movement, China and the United States may have some common language.