Europeans Would Rather Buy Chinese Cars Than American Ones: Study

• A new survey from Escalent shows that Europeans are increasingly considering Chinese cars. 
• At the same time, buyer consideration of American cars is declining in the continent. 
• However, the study also indicates that Europeans wouldn’t pay a premium for Chinese cars, even if they’re superior. 

This year’s IAA could almost be considered a Shanghai Auto Show outpost, with all the Chinese brands swarming the exhibition halls and announcing grand plans. It can be overwhelming. This year, yet another Chinese brand, GAC, announced its intention to bring the somewhat reasonably priced Aion V to Europe. There are a lot of Chinese brands in Europe, so surely they can’t all be doing well?

The jury’s out on that. Some are hit or miss, some are priced too high, and some may not be quite right for European tastes, but the inroads that Chinese brands are making are having real effects. Market research firm Escalent is in the process of finalizing its Chinese Automotive Impact Brands study for 2025, and there are already some fascinating takeaways. KC Boyce, the firm’s Vice President of Powertrain Innovation & Energy Transformation, shared some of the preliminary data from the study with InsideEVs, and there’s a lot to dissect.

Escalent surveyed buyers in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy between May 21 and July 31 of this year, and it learned that the perception of Chinese brands is surpassing that of American brands. Specifically, the firm found that buyers are more willing to consider a Chinese car over an American one. The study showed that 47% of potential buyers surveyed would consider a Chinese car, compared to 44% of the same buyers considering an American car.

This is a big gain for Chinese brands; in 2024, the same study said that only 31% of buyers would consider Chinese cars. It’s also a sizable loss for American brands, since in 2024, 51% of buyers said they would consider buying American.

Photo by: BYD

Part of it, according to Escalent, is that trust in Chinese brands has grown. Chinese brands continue to make inroads into Europe, including advertising, marketing and establishing dealer networks. Consumer trust in Chinese brands is still low, though. In the study, only 19% of study participants trusted goods from China, but this is up from 12% in 2024. It’s also a stone’s throw from 24% for the US, which is down from 31% in 2024.

But why? It’s easy to theorize that anti-US sentiment in Europe has grown significantly this year because of the back-and-forth tariff and geopolitical tensions that have occurred since the Trump administration assumed office this year. These tensions go beyond just tariffs, but also include defense and diplomacy between the U.S. and Europe. It doesn’t take a full-time data archivist to go online and see Europeans are souring on the U.S.

I asked Boyce if this is why the scores for American cars are so low. Boyce said that Escalent’s study wasn’t designed to ask why attitudes on Chinese cars are changing so rapidly, but he did agree that geopolitical tensions are a possible explanation.

“Although the study wasn’t intended to assess why consideration was changing over time outside of Chinese brands, I have to believe that geopolitics (tariffs, trade deals, the US stance on Russia/Ukraine) is playing into European buyers’ sentiment about the US and US auto brands,” Boyce said in an email.

He said that trust in goods from most countries stayed somewhat flat, except the U.S., which is the only country that lost points. Likewise, when it came to the willingness of Europeans to buy cars from the six countries surveyed, the U.S. is the only country that went down significantly. 

Photo by: Ford

That doesn’t mean that Chinese brands are in the clear yet, though. Europeans still think that Chinese cars should be cheaper than cars from longstanding brands. A full 72% of surveyed folks think that a Chinese car should be cheaper than whatever they paid for their existing car. The study also found that only 13% of buyers would be willing to pay more for a Chinese car, even if it’s objectively superior. The majority of respondents expect a discount.

This could make things challenging for Chinese brands as they make more inroads in Europe. Of course, there’s a big market for small and medium-sized hatchbacks and crossovers in Europe; MG and BYD’s success in with cars like the MG 4 and BYD Dolphin has proved that there is a market for them. But a lot of these brands are aiming to go upscale and enter premium markets. This study shows that Europeans may not be willing to pay premium prices for them.

Aito M8

Photo by: Aito

That’s bad news for some of the exhibitors at this year’s IAA show. Aito showed off its premium EV and range-extended crossovers at IAA, but it’s unclear if European buyers will pay luxury-SUV prices for an EV from an unfamiliar brand. The Aito M9 isn’t cheap even in China, with prices touching nearly $80,000 in fully loaded trim. Even before tariffs, the M9 would be going against cars like the Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class or EQE SUV. It may be a big ask for Europeans to spend lots of money on a new brand, even without considering the baggage and negative perception some have of Chinese brands.

Now, though, there appears to be baggage for American brands, too. Boyce said that Escalent’s study did not dig into why the perceptions of U.S. brands have slipped, either. But, he did say that the study suggests that Europeans are more positive toward new, cheap EV products from China, which could suggest that people see these brands as increasingly trustworthy. Conversely, the American brands that sell in Europe (barring Tesla) don’t have very many cheap or small EV shapes for Europeans to choose from. My hunch is that this lack of visibility in one of Europe’s most important markets isn’t helping the perception of American brands.

The full 2025 study isn’t published yet; it is expected to be released before the end of the quarter.

Contact the author: Kevin.Williams@insideevs.com