TikTok Makes Americans Want Chinese EVs They Can’t Have
Chinese brands are winning over American consumers on social media, undermining US efforts to keep them out.
Richard Benoit flew to Alaska a little more than a year ago to test-drive a slate of China’s newest electric vehicles, shipped onto US soil to dazzle online car influencers like him. Sitting in the driver’s seat of a sky-blue Chery iCar 03, Benoit marveled at the SUV’s roomy interior, widescreen digital display with built-in karaoke and jaw-dropping price tag: $24,000. “Now I understand why they don’t want these to come to America,” he said in a video he posted on YouTube. “This is insane.”
Titled “I drove the cheap Chinese cars that are illegal in the USA. Now I know why,” the video has since racked up nearly 2 million views. Benoit says his American subscribers can’t get enough of the sleek, affordable vehicles from Chinese brands including BYD, Xiaomi and Zeekr that flood their social media feeds—yet aren’t for sale in the US. “The second I mention a Chinese car, the videos skyrocket,” he says, when reached by phone from his home in Massachusetts. “Americans want these cars—they just do.”