Europe’s petrol car ban will help Chinese rivals, says BMW boss

afr.com:

London | A looming Europe-wide ban on petrol and diesel cars could hand a large chunk of the European electric vehicle market to the continent’s Chinese rivals, BMW’s chief executive has warned.

But that existential message came as the boss of fellow German auto giant VW said his company was ready to take on its lower-cost, lower-price Chinese competitors – partly by joining forces with one of them.

BYD’s latest models on display at the IAA Munich Motor Show. Bloomberg

As the industry converged on the Munich motor show known as IAA Mobility, where the Chinese electric vehicle makers were out in unusual force, car bosses admitted they were in an epochal race not just against their Asian rivals, but also against time.

Britain proposes to ban the sale of new petrol or diesel cars from 2030, and the European Union from 2035. But Tesla and the Chinese EV firms such as BYD, SAIC and Xpeng are making most of the early running.

The price of an EV in China is less than €32,000 ($53,000), according to Jato Dynamics research quoted in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, compared with €56,000 for an electric car in Europe.

“The base car market segment will either vanish or will not be done by European manufacturers,” BMW boss Oliver Zipse told the Financial Times on the sidelines of the IAA event. “I see that as an imminent risk.”

Stringent EU safety standards and fatter European wallets will push the Chinese to put higher price tags on their products in Europe than at home.

But the Chinese dominance of the battery supply chain means they will still be able to undercut the Europeans and boost their margins, as they look west in response to a sagging domestic market back in China.

The Chinese players’ share of the European EV market, while