Why the massive influx of Chinese EVs will end in tears | Opinion

I’ve been writing about cars and motoring for 25 years, and never known a time like it.

New brands and EV models are arriving on Aussie shores at a furious pace, most of them hailing from China.

Often, this debuting brand has come completely from left field, unrecognised and unknown even by ardent car enthusiasts.

Massive saturation of around a dozen new brands landing here in under two years is absolutely a recipe for disaster.

Some will inevitably fall by the wayside, and brave/foolhardy buyers are going to suffer.

READ MORE: Omoda and Jaecoo the latest new Chinese brands to take on BYD and GWM
READ MORE: IM Motors locked in for Australian arrival as MG’s luxury arm
READ MORE: Hating on Chinese EVs? You might be a car-racist

I’ve just returned from the Australian launch of the Jaecoo brand, the self-styled “premium SUV” arm of Chinese budget giant Chery. Chery, of course, only returned in 2023 after previously selling four-wheeled horrors here between 2011 and 2014.

We sampled the Jaecoo J7 plug-in hybrid, and also learned Omoda was to be a separate brand later in 2025, rather than just a model sold by Chery.

Then before I reached home, MG released a statement saying its premium IM Motors was locked in for Australia this year too. Hop in, IM, the water’s very warm.

Launching under an “IM Presented by MG Motor” banner is telling. I don’t remember it being “Lexus Presented by Toyota” back in the day.

For Australia, other recent or soon-arriving brands include Deepal, Denza, Foton, GAC Aion, Geely, JAC, Leapmotor, Skywell, XPeng and Zeekr. Bloody hell.

There are gold rush signs here.

These newbies are all rocking up expecting to be greeted with open arms and dollars, but a lot of the shiny nuggets (EV early adopters) have already been hoovered up.

There’s the old saying that if you’re jumping on a bandwagon, you’re already too late.

Above all, it’s not easy establishing a brand on our shores, and Tesla and BYD’s success have been the anomalies.

Both arrived flogging EVs when the market had a strong appetite, rivals were few and the economy relatively strong. Aussies were spending money.

In 2025, EV growth has cooled just as the market is flooded. Traditional brands have caught up and newbies have landed, meaning there’s now 89 different electric models in our quite small car market. Oh, and there’s a cost-of-living crisis.

During my career I’ve seen many brands launch then retreat. Hummer, Alpine and Chery managed three years, Rover four, Proton and Infiniti seven, Dodge ten, and Smart hung on for 12. Opel comically lasted less than a year.

For these new or returning entrants, brand recognition should help. Cadillac and Smart, for instance, have a bit of heritage on their side.

Even Chery, which was once poster child for unsafe and unreliable nasties, has been helped by Australians at least having heard of the brand before.

This year so far, Chery’s outselling Honda, BMW and Suzuki. However, that’s mainly thanks to its super-cheap Tiggo 4 Pro SUV ($23,990 drive-away), not an electric car.

And launching a new and obscure EV-only or EV-heavy brand doesn’t look ideal timing right now.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) chief executive Tony Weber said this week: “While the supply of EVs is increasing, the demand for EVs is weak. The early adopters have acted but the rest of the vehicle-buying public has not followed.

“This is consistent with a number of other advanced markets around the world.”

The promise of dozens of dealerships, many more models to come and lengthy warranties sounds great, but none guarantees success.

Buy a box-fresh brand that ultimately retreats (see Opel, for instance), and you’re faced with myriad challenges.

The brand must honour warranties and cover spare parts for a number of years (I’ve not been able to find an official number) under Australian Consumer Law, but can we really expect an unknown brand to make this easy? What if its importer goes out of business too?

There’ll be a fire sale of remaining new car stock, meaning owners will suffer a huge hit to resale values.

With so many new brands entering, I sense it’s the scattergun approach. Launch them all, and see which ones stick.

There’ll be failures and collateral damage, but hey, it’s a tough world out there.

Maybe it’s me being old fashioned, but I struggle with a parent company launching multiple new brands instead of them all wearing the same badge.

Only-just-arrived Chery sells cars in its own right, now already it has Jaecoo and Omoda joining in separate dealerships. Also on the table is Chery’s Exlantix luxury EV brand, known as Exceed in China, to sit above Jaecoo.

Would it get its own separate dealer network too? Really?

It’s the opposite of what Renault Australia’s expected to do when it brings in its Romanian subsidiary Dacia as a brand later this year.

Instead of launching its Duster SUV with the unknown Dacia badge, they’ll sling the familiar Renault brand on it instead. They’ve done so in South Africa, South America and India.

It means Renault can sell the Duster in its existing dealerships, and when sales figures come out, the numbers are shared rather than divided between the brands. Cue Renault jumping up the sales charts.

“It seems a little bit strange having so many different brands, but for us the strategy definitely works,” said Peter Matkin, Chery’s chief engineer.

“Globally, as we launch these brands, they’re all doing really well in every market. Chery has been the number one export seller from China to global markets for 21 years straight.”

While I may be sceptical about all the new brands, we can’t ignore how massive and globally penetrating Chinese brands have become of late.

EVs are a key battleground in the country’s apparent ambitions for global automotive supremacy. In 2023, they produced over 30 million cars – that’s more than the US, Japan, South Korea and Germany combined.

Also in 2023, China became the globe’s largest car exporter for the first time.

Much of that growth has come from China selling cars to Russia – over one million in 2024 – when everyone else withdrew over its invasion of Ukraine. Morally dubious, but why let that get in the way of record sales, eh?

The Australian market has proved highly receptive to Chinese brands, with high specification, cheap prices and generous warranties shaking up the industry.

Last year, Chinese-owned MG was our seventh biggest selling brand, while GWM was tenth. BYD and Chery saw huge growth in 2024, with both targeting a top ten place.

We’re soon going to have 80 unique brands selling cars on our island. Industry experts agree it’s not sustainable, so it’s a matter of sitting back and watching which will fall and when.

Not just the newbies, either. Increased competition will see long-established brands fail in Australia as already sliding sales drop further, denting whatever small profits they were making. Citroen awaits them in the casualty department.

It’s going to be an automotive bloodbath, and it won’t be pretty.