Chinese Made-in-Europe Cars Aim to Skirt EU Tariffs

Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.

China’s electric-car makers are expanding in Europe to blunt the impact of tariffs meant to weaken their price advantage, and the EU’s auto giants have little choice but to make space amid faltering global sales growth. Beijing’s new generation of automakers are teaming up with local European industry in factories from Barcelona to Poland. As the EU prepares to hike duties to as much as 48%, the local foothold means their cars are considered homegrown and can avoid becoming thousands of euros more expensive — or unprofitable, if they don’t pass on levies. But the push is also bringing scrutiny. In June, Italy’s antitrust authority fined a company after determining it had illegally labeled vehicles as Italian-made — something the company denies.