Red carpet for cars from China

Red carpet for cars from China

Attractive design, low environmental impact, long range and an affordable price – these are the most important attributes that buyers expect from a car today. The transition from combustion engines to electric vehicles is in full swing, but until recently the corresponding vehicle range from European manufacturers was only able to convince a few people. High prices, modest ranges and faltering delivery capabilities hampered the widespread ramp-up of electromobility. For a few months now, however, manufacturers from China have been pushing into the gap in the market and offering purely electrically powered vehicles that are hardly more expensive than combustion cars. For the domestic car trade, the new brands offer new opportunities for a flourishing new car business.

MG, BYD, NIO, ORA and AIWAYS are the names of the first car brands from the Middle Kingdom that are currently gaining a foothold in Austria. BYD (Build Your Dreams) has already made it into the domestic top 10 of new car registrations in the electric car category with 1,024 new registrations in its first year of sales. The importer is CCI Car Austria GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of Wolfgang Denzel AG, which has set up an Austria-wide dealer and workshop network with 30 BYD partner companies in just 12 months. “Chinese manufacturers are pushing massively into the European market, and with very competitive products,” says Alexander Wachtmeister, industry expert at the management consultancy Boston Consulting. According to the European manufacturers' association Acea, a total of 552,000 cars were exported from China to the EU in 2022, which is six percent of all new registrations. An analysis by management consultancy McKinsey explains why the vehicles are around 20 to 30 percent cheaper than electric cars from European manufacturers, among other things, by the fact that the development of a new model in China only takes around half as long as in Europe. Conclusion: Around 70 new electric cars come onto the market every year from the Middle Kingdom - a variety that European manufacturers are far from being able to keep up with.

“Recently, many car dealerships have terminated their classic dealer contracts and are now looking for new brands - the Chinese manufacturers have come at just the right time,” says Klaus Edelsbrunner, federal representative of the domestic vehicle trade. Although the manufacturers from the Far East initially tried to win customers with pop-up stores in large cities and shopping centers, they soon realized: “Entering the Austrian market without established dealers is not possible, simply because of the topography,” says Edelsbrunner. In Austria, customer loyalty to dealers is stronger than brand loyalty. The federal committee's lobbyist recommends that dealers remain open to offers from the Far East, because "China will probably invest a lot of money in Austria in order to develop the market."