Should Americans Be Afraid of Chinese Cars? A Firsthand Look at Where China Stands
We learned just as much about the state of the Chinese automotive industry from observing as we did driving Chinese cars.
We traveled to Wuhan, China, recently to drive some of the latest and greatest Chinese EVs and see if American skepticism—or outright fear—of Chinese cars was justified. While there we also made a point to explore the country’s car culture and get a sense of what things were like on the ground for both Chinese automakers and consumers. That insight just might help us figure out how American shoppers and automakers would fare if Chinese-branded EVs ever hit North American roads. Here are some of the trends we observed and experienced.
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Too Many Choices?
China has more than 200 EV brands competing against one another in a saturated market that, demographically, is already in decline. It’s already an unsustainable situation, yet China’s big carmakers (and Western ones competing in China) keep launching new brands. Geely alone had four of its 13 brands represented among the cars we drove, with Zeekr, launched in 2021, its newest. BYD launched Yangwang, its third brand, in 2023. Chery’s iCar is even younger—it’s the 10th member of the Chery family of brands and just launched this year after making its debut in the spring of 2023.
This increased competition has resulted in a brutal price war, with big fish like BYD cutting prices and forcing others to follow. Compounding factors, such as overcapacity at Chinese auto factories and slowed economic growth, have turned this race to the bottom into an extinction-level event for some automakers. Once-popular Chinese EV brands like WM Motor and Byton are among many that have bit the dust. More will undoubtedly follow, especially since DCar editors tell us Chinese consumers are having trouble keeping up with the choices, often resorting back to known brands in their frustration. (Our trip to China was at the invitation of DCar, one of that country’s top automotive media brands.)
Tech Companies Are Still Diving In
The entry of tech giants into the automotive space has exacerbated this trend. Although automakers such as Geely and BAIC no doubt welcome the chance to keep their factories humming making cars for Baidu (which started in internet search) or Xiaomi (consumer electronics and smartphones), doing so also creates more competition for their own models. And tech companies can come into the industry with a leg up on traditional automakers because they can seamlessly integrate Chinese consumers’ digital lives into their cars. The SU7, for instance, can help lock Xiaomi customers into its ecosystem by pairing with its owner’s Xiaomi-made phone and all its apps (which can be mirrored on the car’s display), smart home devices, laptops, and smart watches—something a BAIC-built Beijing or Arcfox can’t accomplish.
Revving Up
Despite the pictures painted of China as an EV utopia, we were surprised to discover just how popular and widespread extended-range EVs (EREVs) are. Distinguished from the plug-in hybrids we have stateside by larger batteries with DC fast-charging capabilities and engines that aren’t mechanically connected to the wheels, EREVs like the Li Auto L6 are a popular option among Chinese families.
It’s not hard to understand why. The fourth largest country in the world in land area behind the United States and the world’s second most populous country behind India, China has a lot of miles to travel and people to contend with. Despite plentiful charging options throughout the country, road trips can be a struggle because of the distances involved, the generally slow rate of charging of the most common Chinese EVs, and the fact that chargers tend to get swamped during holiday seasons. (Sound familiar?) Charger access for apartment dwellers remains a problem, too, and EREVs, like PHEVs, come with the peace of mind that you can keep driving if you can’t find a plug.
Switching Things Up
That’s led to some outside-the-box solutions to the problem. Nio’s battery-swap capability is perhaps the most exciting, even if we question its feasibility outside of China. Its 2,500 Power Swap stations are located both along highways on what Nio calls its “power journey” corridors and in urban areas.
We had a chance to swap the 100-kWh pack of our Nio ET5 at a local swap station in Wuhan and were impressed. We reserved a battery ahead of time on the car’s infotainment display, drove to the station, parked in front of it, and tapped the screen to initiate the swap. The ET5 autonomously reversed into a stall where the floor opened below the Nio, the battery was removed (12-volt power remains on in the car, ensuring the infotainment system and some accessories are uninterrupted), and a fully charged one is plugged in. Once the floor closes, a message flashes on the display saying the process is complete, and the driver takes over to exit the station. The whole process took about five minutes.
The tech was cool, but we’re skeptical of its success in the U.S. Real estate in America is more expensive than in China, and we have a hard time envisioning parking lots giving up the six or so parking spaces required for Nio’s Power Swap stations cheaply or automakers getting more into the landowning business. As far as American infrastructure development goes, the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid) of adding additional fast-charging stations is probably the path of least resistance. Regardless of the tech’s feasibility in the U.S., Nio has already made inroads on its swap stations in Europe with a couple dozen stations sprinkled throughout the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
Does China Have Self-Driving Cars?
“Self-driving” cars, despite laws prohibiting anything beyond Level 2 autonomy in consumer cars, are all the rage in China. It’s such a huge draw that enthusiasts keep track of chipsets and sensors, and automotive designers tend to highlight instead of hide their advanced driver assistance system sensors on their cars, often prominently placing them on the roofs, as seen on the Yangwang, Nio, Zeekr, and Xiaomi (among others) we had on hand.
Chinese consumers seem to love it, too. Many of the DCar journalists said it’s common for them to have their cars navigate themselves home at the end of the day (similar to Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot feature), allowing commuters to mentally check out, catch up with friends via onboard WeChat apps, or stream video on the car’s displays, which weirdly is totally legal in China.
Naturally, we had to try this for ourselves, especially after mixed experiences with Tesla’s Full Self Driving Beta and more successful experiences with GM’s Super Cruise, Ford’s BlueCruise, and Mercedes-Benz’s Drive Pilot, the latter of which is the world’s first legally approved Level 3 autonomous system.
DCar recommended we sample the Aito M9 and the Nio ET5, as both impressed in DCar’s own ADAS testing. Our route would be a mix of highway and city streets, snaking through Wuhan from the proving ground to the Nio’s battery swap station, a short 10-mile, 45-minute drive away. Like most advanced driver aids in our market (the camera-only system from Tesla being the exception), the Aito and Nio rely on a mixture of cameras, ultrasonic radars, and lidar to navigate their way down the road; the Aito has one lidar unit, three radars, and 11 cameras, while the Nio has one lidar, five radars, and 11 cameras backed up by an advanced Nvidia Drive Orin chipset.
The experience, while brief, was underwhelming. The cars had no problem leaving the proving ground on near-empty boulevards and on busier highways, but they struggled mightily on urban surface streets. In one instance, our two travel lanes were blocked by a dump truck reversing into a driveway. The Nio pulled into the blocked fast lane, seemingly to pass the truck, and then came to a stop about 6 feet away from the truck. It then stuck its nose out into oncoming traffic to see if it was clear before thinking better of it and waiting for the truck to get out of the way, a quarter of the car over the double yellow lines. The Aito, meanwhile, came to a stop about 20 feet short of the truck in the slow lane and sat there until both the truck was clear and traffic that was behind us had started passing.
Both cars also made questionable decisions in heavy traffic. The Nio pulled a classic New York move and used a right-turn-only lane to slip ahead of gridlock and continue straight. The Aito, meanwhile, followed the Nio into the right turn lane, only to realize it needed to go straight. It then came to a stop well short of the intersection, turned its left turn signal on, and waited optimistically for a gap in the gridlock to materialize. Real human drivers behind us let their displeasure be known by laying into their horns. Our driver had to take control to squeeze back into the correct lane of traffic and relieve the backlog of cars behind us.
While these incidents are anecdotal, they largely mirror our experiences with Tesla’s Full Self Driving Beta: generally OK on divided highways but nowhere near good enough to deal with complex urban environments. Chinese automakers, based on our small sample size, appear to be copying Tesla’s strategy— rushing to be first to market with “autonomous” cars in the hopes of figuring out the technology later.
The Zeekr 007 benefits from a beautifully finished premium interior, with bold color choices and mixtures of textures.
Focusing on Software Instead of Hardware
Many established automakers in America are masters of hardware engineering but out of their depth when it comes to software. That dynamic was surprisingly reversed among many of the Chinese vehicles we drove. With few exceptions, many felt underdamped, underbraked, and almost completely devoid of any real feedback or feel from the steering wheel. Market preference certainly plays a part in those choices, but good fundamentals are good fundamentals.
Chinese automakers can likely get away with that because of how much of a focus is put on infotainment software in their cars. From flashy Unreal Engine–powered graphics in the MG Cyberster to seamless phone mirroring in the SU7 and the plethora of AI voice assistants, the software in even the cheapest Chinese cars on hand was more capable and feature-rich than most systems in our market. Some of the highlights included Ji Yue’s video games (the San Francisco Rush 2049 copy was notably fun), Nio’s adorable Tamagotchi-style “Nomi” GPT-powered AI assistant, and the Zeekr’s attention to detail—mirroring the droplets of rain outside on the digital avatar of our car in the infotainment display. While we were entertained, no doubt the inclusion of apps like WeChat, Alipay, and Weibo in most of these cars would be more useful day to day for their owners.
Should We Be Afraid of Chinese Cars?
Is the fear of Chinese cars being sold in the United States justified? It depends on who you are.
From a pure product standpoint, none of the cars we drove was fundamentally any better or significantly worse than the American, European, Japanese, and South Korean options on the market today. Chinese buyers clearly value different things from their cars than Americans do, generally preferring smaller sedans to SUVs, being driven rather than driving themselves, and interconnectivity with their other smart devices. We have a hard time imagining American shoppers getting as excited about being able to post on TikTok from their cars or valuing self-parking features as much as Chinese buyers seem to, especially because some American automakers have begun removing the latter feature from their cars because customers didn’t use it.
From a quality and price standpoint, however, Western automakers have good reason to be spooked by Chinese competition. Nearly all the cars we sampled were well-built and loaded with features, and when converting their as-tested price from yuan to dollars, they would greatly undercut North American competition. This is well illustrated by the Tesla Model 3 we had on hand. In China, a Shanghai-built Tesla stickers for $38,050, whereas an identical California-built Model 3 is priced at $49,130 in the U.S. There are many factors at play here—a short Chinese supply chain, lower labor costs in China, heavy Chinese government subsidies for electrified vehicles (both for customers and manufacturers), and the aforementioned price war among automakers—but it’s not hard to envision a scenario where an American family makes the rational decision to purchase a Chinese compact SUV like an Xpeng G6 or an iCar 03 simply because it’s $10,000 cheaper than an equivalent Model Y or Ford Bronco Sport.
More so than Japanese automakers in the ’70s and ’80s, there’s a genuine risk of Chinese automakers Walmarting American automakers out of existence. The solution back then involved “voluntary” quotas with a treaty ally that led to new factories for Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, and Subaru across the U.S. and some access to the Japanese market for American automakers.
With the American and Chinese governments at odds over just about everything and little trust between the two, a repeat of that approach is unlikely. Instead, the 100 percent tariff the federal government has placed on Chinese EVs, auto parts, and software, in addition to increasingly strict EV tax credit rules governing Chinese-processed components in American, European, Japanese, and South Korean cars, appears to be just the start. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have signaled a clear desire to protect the nation’s auto industry from negative impacts by a country both parties view as working against American interests globally.
Chinese entry into the U.S. beyond Geely’s Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus foothold no longer appears imminent, but the interest to do so likely won’t wane. No matter what happens, we’ll be sure to keep you ahead of the curve.
MotorTrend recently traveled to China to test drive a broad range of Chinese “new energy vehicles”—battery electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrids (PHEV), and electric range-extended vehicles (EREV)—in an editorial content sharing partnership with Dongchedi (aka Dcar). A subsidiary of ByteDance, Dcar is one of China’s top automotive media brands, and publishes new car videos and social media for the Chinese market on its website and app. DCar invited MotorTrend to join a special summer test program in Wuhan, China, at proving grounds specifically designed for autonomous-vehicle development. All of the vehicles we tested were either purchased, rented, or borrowed by DCar; none were supplied by their respective automakers. DCar also provided travel and lodging arrangements for MotorTrend, along with editorial support, including photo, video, and translation services.
Photo contributions by Dcar
I generally like writing—especially when it’s about cars—but I hate writing about myself. So instead of blathering on about where I was born (New York City, in case you were wondering) or what type of cars I like (all of ’em, as long as it has a certain sense of soul or purpose), I’ll answer the one question I probably get most, right after what’s your favorite car (see above): How’d you get that job? Luck. Well, mostly. Hard work, too. Lots of it. I sort of fell into my major of journalism/mass communication at St. Bonaventure University and generally liked it a lot. In order to complete my degree senior year, we had to spend our last two semesters on some sort of project. Seeing as I loved cars and already spent a good portion of my time reading about cars on sites such as Motor Trend, I opted to create a car blog. I started a Tumblr, came up with a car-related name (The Stig’s American Cousin), signed up for media access on a bunch of manufacturer’s websites, and started writing. I did everything from cover new trim levels to reviewing my friends’ cars. I even wrote a really bad April Fool’s Day post about the next Subaru Impreza WRX being Toyota-Corolla-based. It was fun, and because it was fun, it never felt like work. Sometime after my blog had gotten off the ground, I noticed that Motor Trend was hiring for what’s now our Daily News Team. I sent in my résumé and a link to my blog. I got the job, and two weeks after graduation I made the move from New York to California. I’ve been happily plugging away at a keyboard—and driving some seriously awesome hardware—ever since.
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