The international energy situation continues to fluctuate, oil prices continue to rise, prompting Europeans to accept electric vehicles, and giving Chinese new energy vehicle brands new hope in Europe. According to foreign media reports, in April 2026, overall sales of Chinese automakers in the European market increased by 114% year-on-year, with SAIC Motor, BYD, and Chery emerging as the big winners.
While products are selling well, facing EU trade barriers and the global reality of excess capacity, Chinese top new and old automakers are also accelerating the layout of overseas production bases, landing localized production by acquiring and renovating idle capacity of traditional automakers in the US and Europe.
From export to sales to production, Chinese new energy vehicle brands going global are accelerating their advancement, expected to enter a new stage of reshaping the European automotive industry landscape.
SAIC Steady, Chery Aggressive, Chinese Cars Selling Big in Europe
On May 22, 2026, European automotive media cited the latest data from local market research firm Dataforce, stating April overall new car sales in Europe continued to recover, up 6.4% year-on-year, with the regional car market maintaining a steady recovery trend overall.
Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, European oil prices have risen by about 20% since 2026, therefore, new energy models became the core driver pulling April growth in the European car market. Among them, pure electric vehicles performed the most prominently, with April sales increasing by 38% year-on-year, setting the highest single-month growth rate since 2026; Plug-in hybrid vehicle sales growth was 21%, and Hybrid vehicle sales growth also reached 15%.
European car users are accelerating their shift to new energy vehicles, which also created a perfect growth opportunity for Chinese car brands to accelerate expanding sales in the European market.
Data shows, in April 2026, overall sales of Chinese automakers in the European market doubled, surging 114% year-on-year. Among them, SAIC Motor sales in April were 30,074 vehicles, stably at the top of the Chinese automaker sales list, BYD single month sales were 28,186 vehicles ranking second, Chery April sales were 25,656 vehicles, ranking third. From a single-month performance perspective, the sales gap between the three Chinese automakers in the European market is also continuously narrowing.
In terms of sales growth rate, April European car market growth rate list was almost dominated by Chinese brands, Leapmotor growth rate was as high as 423%, Chery and BYD followed with year-on-year growth rates of 344% and 125% respectively, overall growth momentum was strong.
Among them, Chery became the Chinese automaker with the strongest growth explosiveness in the European market in April. Compared to April 2025, Chery sales increased by nearly 20,000 vehicles. Dataforce data shows, Chery brand April 2025 sales in Europe were only 4 vehicles, this April reached 5,446 vehicles; In addition, two sub-brands under Chery, Omoda and Jaecoo, both exerted force synchronously, all ranked in the forefront of European market sales growth, among them, Omoda growth ranked third in Europe, Jaecoo ranked sixth. Terminal market performance indicates Chery's layout in Europe has entered a stage of full-force exertion.
Because contrasting sharply with the high growth of Chinese brands is that some European local automakers and traditional car giants encountered sales decline in April. For example, Toyota dipped slightly 1% year-on-year, Renault declined 3%, Ford fell 11%, Hyundai decline reached 12%, Premium brand Porsche also surprisingly declined year-on-year to 17%, Mitsubishi decline was most prominent, reaching 51%.
European local giant Stellantis, which maintains close relations with Chinese automakers Leapmotor and Dongfeng, April sales achieved 4.3% year-on-year growth, but growth rate was lower than the overall European car market performance. Brand performance division within the group was significant, Leapmotor, Fiat, Opel/Vauxhall, Citroen maintained positive sales growth, while Peugeot and Alfa Romeo showed obvious sales decline.
If Chinese new energy vehicle new and old brands can continue this upward momentum, they will be expected to reshape the European market competition landscape.
Chinese Automakers on a Crazy Buying Spree, But Still Must Clear Union Hurdles
On one hand, multiple factors such as oil price hikes and new energy vehicle market transition overlap, leading to weak sales of traditional car giants in the European market. On the other hand, the manufacturing system left over from the fuel vehicle era is also gradually falling into the dilemma of idleness or excess capacity.
Consulting agencies predict, large numbers of low-utilization car factories in the US and Europe will face shutdown or transfer in the future, and the EU's measure of imposing additional import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, will further promote Chinese automakers to accelerate the layout of European localized production.
In this context, taking over and renovating traditional automaker factories has become a core method for many Chinese automakers laying out overseas localized production. This phenomenon has also attracted foreign media attention, recently a European automotive media reported that BYD is currently negotiating with Stellantis and other European automakers to take over idle factories in the region. In fact, BYD announced building a factory in Hungary as early as the end of 2023, becoming the first Chinese automaker to build a passenger car factory in the EU.
BYD Hungary factory planned annual capacity is 300,000 vehicles, in 2025 BYD sales in the European market exceeded 187,000 vehicles, year-on-year increase of over 260% compared to 2024. Predicting according to the growth rate, BYD relying solely on one Hungary factory will be difficult to satisfy car sales needs in Europe, therefore rumors about negotiating factory purchase with local car makers are reasonable.
Chinese automakers full of ambition for the European market are not just BYD. Just in one month of May 2026, news has spread about multiple Chinese automakers negotiating European capacity cooperation projects. For example, on May 20, Stellantis Group announced cooperation negotiation with Dongfeng Group, planning to rely on France Rennes factory to achieve local production of Dongfeng new energy models. In addition, Leapmotor also revealed that Leapmotor International established as a joint venture with Stellantis, is expected to acquire Stellantis factory located in Madrid, Spain, quickly build a European local production base.
There is also news that Geely is also actively accelerating the acquisition of Ford Spain Valencia factory partial assembly production line; Xpeng was also exposed to be negotiating with Volkswagen Group, seeking to acquire its European idle capacity. There is also Chery cooperating with Spain Ebro Group to activate former Nissan old factory, currently production has been resumed, Chery models are about to be imported and landed.
Taking over and renovating European automakers' idle capacity, the benefit is avoiding industry duplicate construction, increase local European employment opportunities, conforming to industrial policy orientation, also can save more time and improve efficiency compared to completely self-building factories.
However, what needs to be reminded to Chinese automakers is, buying spree does not mean permanent security, behind it also hides great risks.
Also recently, after news spread about Volkswagen Group and Xpeng negotiating idle capacity sales, Volkswagen Group union head (Daniela Cavallo) stood before tens of thousands of workers, heatedly criticized group management, and strongly opposed management negotiating with Chinese automakers etc. third parties to yield idle capacity.
Under this pressure, Volkswagen Group CEO (Oliver Blume) publicly stated, currently, Volkswagen has not had any negotiations with Chinese manufacturers regarding using European factory capacity, in the future there are absolutely no related cooperation plans.
Compared to emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa with high inclusivity to Chinese automakers, mature European car market regulations, unions, environmental protection, employment commitments etc. constraints conditions are more severe, Chinese automakers landing localization through the method of acquiring factories, besides renovating production lines, adapting supply chains, more need to adapt to local rules, adapt to local culture to survive better.
Of course, self-built factories can fully fit the automaker's own manufacturing standards, supply chain systems, and production concepts, autonomy control is stronger, but this also suits fund-adequate, layout pace controllable automakers to go for long-term layout. From this level, currently BYD's capacity layout in Europe fits long-term + short-term coordination better, globally, besides negotiating qualified old factories in major markets for renovation, BYD has landed at least 4 self-built complete vehicle factories in places like Thailand, Hungary, Turkey.
European new energy vehicle sales significantly increased, brought development opportunities to Chinese automakers eager to go global, however European complex emotions on Chinese automaker acquiring factories, again makes Chinese automakers' Europe road full of difficulties. Actually, this round of global automotive capacity restructuring led by Chinese automakers, reflects structural transfer of industry discourse power in the new energy vehicle era.
Fuel vehicle era, US/EU/Japan/Korea automakers dominated global car technical routes, capacity configuration and industry rules, under the wave of smart electrification, relying on complete new energy supply chain, mature three-electric and intelligent technology, efficient capacity system, Chinese automakers are upgrading from product export to full-scale overseas presence of capacity, technology, standards, expected to reshape the European and even global automotive industry landscape.
(Source: autonews.com, reuters.com, bloomberg.com)
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