In the first five months of 2025, Chinese brands sold 171,800 battery electric vehicles across western Europe's 18 largest markets — a figure that translates to one in every seven BEVs finding a buyer. That market share of 14.2%, tracked by Schmidt Automotive Research, represents a gain of nearly five percentage points on the same period in 2024, and arrives precisely when European manufacturers are being compelled by tighter emissions regulations to accelerate their own electric transitions. The numbers do not distribute evenly.

The United Kingdom accounts for a full quarter of those Chinese BEV sales, a direct consequence of the British government's decision not to replicate the EU's supplementary import tariffs — which can reach 35.3% on top of the standard 10% duty for certain manufacturers. Italy, meanwhile, contributed roughly a fifth of total sales, though analyst Matthias Schmidt characterises this as a statistical distortion: Leapmotor shipped large volumes of its T03 city car into Italy to exploit a government purchase subsidy that briefly reduced the sticker price to as little as €5,000. Remove that single intervention and the Italian figure looks considerably less dramatic.

Brands such as BYD, Chery, SAIC, and Xpeng have collectively listed more than 120 distinct models on European roads this year, outpacing the roughly 100 models offered by European manufacturers. Yet Schmidt, who founded the eponymous research firm, cautions against reading this momentum as indefinitely self-sustaining. Chinese producers appear to be pivoting toward plug-in hybrid vehicles — powertrains that blend a petrol engine with a smaller battery — which currently fall outside the EU tariff framework entirely. "I think they are hitting a wall when it comes to pure electric models," Schmidt said, adding that PHEVs would be prioritised over the coming period.