China's hybrid car exports to the EU more than tripled, right as Brussels moves to cap them
Chinese automakers leaned into a tariff loophole on hybrids after the EU's 2024 duties on electric cars, pushing exports toward 800,000 vehicles this year, before Brussels agreed to cap them at 350,000 starting in December.
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By Pacific Post Staff·Published
Rows of Chinese-made cars awaiting export at a port, with a large car-carrier ship docked behind them · Source: Xinhua
Chinese automakers sharply ramped up shipments of hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars to the European Union this year, just as Brussels finalized a deal to sharply limit how many of those vehicles can enter the bloc starting in December.
The value of China's hybrid exports to the EU roughly tripled in the first half of 2026, climbing to about $7.5 billion from roughly $2.5 billion a year earlier. The pace kept building into the autumn: China shipped nearly 100,000 hybrid vehicles to the EU in September alone, more than triple the volume from the same month in 2025. SAIC, BYD and Chery accounted for more than 90 percent of that volume between them.
The surge traces back to a 2024 decision by Brussels to impose additional duties on Chinese-made battery electric vehicles after an anti-subsidy investigation. Hybrids were left out of those tariffs, and Chinese manufacturers leaned into the gap, pushing full-year hybrid exports to the EU onto a path that would have reached roughly 800,000 vehicles in 2026 had nothing changed.
Something did change. The European Commission has agreed to cap Chinese hybrid and plug-in hybrid imports at 350,000 vehicles a year, roughly half that projected volume, under a World Trade Organization safeguard provision that lets it move faster than a full anti-dumping case would allow. The quota is set to take effect from early December and rise 6 percent a year over a four-year run. Unlike some past EU trade measures, it is not a tariff. There is no option to pay extra and keep shipping once the ceiling is hit, customs will simply stop clearing Chinese-origin vehicles for the rest of the year once the quota is used up. Vehicles assembled inside the EU, including at plants in Hungary and potentially Spain, are exempt.
Brussels estimates the measure will roughly halve Chinese brands' current 12 percent share of the EU car market, a dent that comes even as Chinese automakers overall have leaned harder on exports, with total overseas car shipments climbing sharply this year as the industry looks past a crowded and increasingly price-competitive home market.
