The share of electric vehicles imported from China to Germany has more than tripled.
From January to March, 28.2% of electric cars exported to Germany were made in China, WirtschaftsWoche reports with reference to the Federal Statistical Office. A year ago, this figure was 7.8%.
Moreover, Nio has recently announced that it wants to take market share in Europe from its German rival Volkswagen.
However, in the first quarter of 2023, the Chinese EV manufacturer sold a little more than 300 electric cars in Europe. For comparison, here are VW’s sales figures for the same period according to JATO Dynamics:
- Volkswagen ID.3 – 17,316
- Volkswagen ID.4 – 16,646
- Volkswagen ID.5 – 4,652
- Volkswagen ID. BUZZ – 2,488.
At the same time, the statistics emphasized that “many everyday goods, as well as goods for the energy transition, now mainly come from China.” For example, 86.0% of laptops, 67.8% of smartphones and phones, and 39.2% of lithium-ion batteries came from China to Germany in the 1st quarter of 2023.
It is reported that China is a key partner of Germany not only in the trade of final products but raw materials as well. 91.8% of imports of rare earth metals, which are used in many key technologies such as electromobility or wind energy, came from there.
China remained Germany’s important trading partner in the first quarter. However, the volume of foreign trade – exports and imports – fell by 10.5 percent to 64.7 billion euros. This is slightly more than trade with the US, which was $64.1 billion.
