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‘Electric cars are far too expensive’. In a year that will see the demise of both the Ford Fiesta and Volkswagen Golf, with neither giving way to an affordable electric successor, it’s a statement that rings true for many drivers.
With just over a decade to go until the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars is outlawed in the UK in 2035, cut-price electric cars are needed more urgently than ever – and the solution might well come from China.
Once the buyer of aspirational Western luxuries instead of the producer of its own, the country has pumped billions of yuan into growing its own car industry. The result is a market full of firms producing battery-powered vehicles for China, and which now want to start exporting to the rest of the world to compete with some of thebest electric carsin the market.
We’ve already seen success from MG, the classic British brand that’s now the property of Chinese state-owned carmaker SAIC, and you may have recently seen TV adverts for the amusingly named ORA Funky Cat, from China’s Great Wall Motors.
No wonder the company received 10,000 pre-orders within 24 hours of the car being unveiled last month. An analyst toldReutershow the Seagull could become China’s best-selling car in six months. “This redefines the whole market in terms of a price value proposition,” Bill Russo of Automobility said.
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As the reborn MG has proven, British buyers seem less concerned with badge loyalty (and snobbery) than ever before. Would they stretch as far as a budget Chinese EV for their daily driver? We wouldn’t bet against it.
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