Are the EV Tariffs Working? Western Carmakers Shifted Production to EU, but Chinese Brands Continue to Grow — Analysis

This one's about European car and battery markets, not home energy upgrades, but here's the gist. The European Union put tariffs on electric cars made in China back in 2024 to protect its own carmakers. A new analysis finds the tariffs partly worked: cars made in China now make up 17% of the EU's electric vehicle market, down from a peak of 22% in 2024. Most of that drop came from Western brands like Tesla, BMW, and Volvo moving production out of China and into Europe, not from Chinese brands losing ground. Chinese automakers, meanwhile, kept growing their share of EU imports and are building new factories in Europe to work around the tariffs.

One gap in the tariffs: batteries. Chinese-made batteries face almost no tariff, and imports of them into the EU grew sevenfold between 2020 and 2025. European battery makers now produce less than a quarter of the batteries used in EU-made electric cars, and their future is uncertain. The analysis suggests a 20% tariff on Chinese batteries would raise the price of European-made electric cars by less than 3% on average.

The report also warns that if the EU weakens its planned emissions targets for cars, Chinese brands could end up controlling 30% of the EU electric vehicle market by 2035, twice what's expected under current rules. None of this changes anything for home energy upgrades directly, but it's a sign of how much the global EV and battery supply chain is still shifting.