Stellantis CEO: Chinese EVs danger to his carmaker, Tesla

In China, however, EVs are actually more affordable than gas guzzlers. And increasingly, Chinese EVs are being exported to markets around the world and sold for prices that are tough to match.

That has leaders of automakers outside China worried. This week, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares likened China’s automotive emergence to the arrival of Japanese carmakers in the U.S. in the 1970s, followed by South Korean rivals three decades later.

Now it’s China’s turn to make its mark, he suggested, and that poses a threat to existing carmakers like Stellantis, whose brands include Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, and Maserati.

“The Chinese offensive is possibly the biggest risk that companies like Tesla and ourselves are facing right now,’’ Tavares said. “We have to work very, very hard to make sure that we bring out consumers better offerings than the Chinese.”

The most-feared Chinese carmaker is probably BYD—backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway—which recently topped Tesla in global EV sales. 

“No one can match BYD on price. Period,” Michael Dunne, CEO of Asia-focused car consultancy Dunne Insights, recently told the Financial Times. “Boardrooms in America, Europe, Korea, and Japan are in a state of shock.”

BYD keeps its costs low in part because it owns the entire supply chain of its EV batteries, from the raw materials to the finished battery packs. The battery accounts for roughly 40% of a new electric vehicle’s price.

Taking on Chinese EVs

Chinese EVs are not flooding American roads today thanks to protectionist measures—a 25% tariff on Chinese-made cars on top of a regular 2.5% one on imported cars. But American lawmakers fear that Chinese carmakers will use factories in Mexico to avoid such tariffs, taking…