My worry about anything made in China is build quality and longevity (possibly safety as well, but I guess they wouldn’t make it to the European market if they didn’t comply with at least the minimum standards). Whilst I’m no Eco Warrior, I know that many people who go the EV route are. Aside from the fact that EVs are more environmentally damaging at the production stage, I heard an interesting statistic the other day that as China is still reliant on coal fired power stations, you have to do 78,000 miles in a Chinese built EV before you start to offset the environmental damage caused by the cars production!
Volvo famously quoted the c40 need to be driven 68400 miles to have a lower carbon impact than petrol than its petrol version and the XC40 recharge 128000 miles, 50% lower if charged by wind turbines. The tiny EX30’s carbon footprint at 125,000 miles should be 25% less than the XC40 ev’s. Anders Kärrberg, head of sustainability at Volvo quoted “One reason for the smaller footprint is, well, the EX30’s smaller footprint. A small car uses fewer raw materials than a big one. But Volvo has also increased the content of recycled metals in the EX30’s structure, and it uses more recycled plastics than any prior Volvo”.
As for Chinese cars, I can’t see them being much different to European manufacturers. Catl and BYD are the larges battery manufacturers in the world, with there batteries seen in the likes of Mercedes EQ series, BMW I3 and Tesla’s aswell as quite a few others. As long as the brakes work I wouldn’t be too worried lol