Don’t know if it will be available on Motability but the Chinese company BYD are said to be launching their “Seal” model here later this year. It has a range of 435 miles costing £31,850. If that happens it would certainly give the established EV companies something to ponder!
A few more China.com cars that meet European specifications, woulddn’t be a bad thing if only to open the the eyes of European car makers.
I found this clip interesting:
“The other thing we’re going to see next year (2023 is a glut of Chinese-produced cars, sold under their own badges or those of existing European car makers. Chinese firms tend to make rather grandiose claims about delivery dates, but of all of those we’ve seen and driven it’s the BYD Atto 3 with its lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery technology that has impressed the most.
Most of the Chinese-made vehicles are aimed at the family crossover market, where price takes precedence over the badge, so think of Geely’s Lynk & Co, Shanghai Automotive’s MG brand or Great Wall Motor’s Ora brand and its Funky Cat as typical contenders, although only MG is calling its pricing strategy “disruptive”; a phrase calculated to send chills through the bones of non-premium giants such as Ford, which has a couple of family crossovers to launch next year, or Opel Vauxhall.
Then there are the Chinese-made cars sold by European brands, including the new Smart, new Mini and Volvo’s XC60, S90 and forthcoming small SUV models. Europe’s carmakers have called for tariff protection against what looks like Chinese cars sold at near to or even below the cost of production (known as dumping), but while the European Union has been quick to slap anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese-made electric bicycles, I wouldn’t expect any action against cars produced in China despite the damage they could potentially do to Europe’s car makers, as well as automotive jobs and investment.
Tariff protection would be difficult to frame and enforce and would be seen as inflammatory to Sino-European trade relationships. Moreover, since European carmakers are unable to produce soon-to-be mandated battery cars at the sizes and prices that ordinary folk can afford, these cheap Chinese battery-electric machines are a way of UK and European legislators justifying their monomaniacal battery-at-all-costs strategies. Oh, the things we give away in the name of the environment…
The other thing that might come under more scrutiny is battery-car range. Not only are the WLTP range tests completely hopeless for battery cars, but even within these figures, in real-life testing, some cars do well while others do appallingly. Again, our technically illiterate Government hasn’t understood the ramifications of battery-car efficiency or miles per kilowatt hour. ”
The article was based on the best cars in 2023, not something I particularly agrred with, but the content of the article pointed out above was interesting. More can be found here if you want to read it.
On the subject of Chinese cars what is also intersting is Nio’s ET7 and ES7 are useing a form of solid state battery along with other manufacturers that aren’t that much more according to Nio to manufacture than the normal wet batteries we see in EV’s. The Nio ET7 150Kw for example see’s a 620 mile range and may not be affected as much in colder climates!