Chinese EVs in North America

Factual Questions
1

Currently, the US has a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. This is not a tariff set by Trump, but rather Biden. Canada went along in lockstep, so they had a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs too. These high tariffs effectively excluded those EVs from North America.

However, that’s changed. A new agreement between China and Canada allows a limited number of EVs to be imported at only 6% tariff.

My question is: What happens if an American goes to Canada, buys a Chinese EV, and brings it back home? Will they be able to register it? Any other issues they may face?

2

I don’t believe it’s illegal to own one, and I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to register it, although that may vary by state. With a 100% tariff, it’s certainly not economically feasible to sell them in the US at this point, but I think you could import one into the country, assuming you pay the tariff. Someone will chime in if I have that all wrong.

3

Don’t cars need to be certified that they are street legal? There are various requirements that cars have certain features like rearview mirrors/cameras and other things. Have the Chinese car manufacturers gone through that certification process? I don’t think they have.

4

You would need to pay the tariff yourself. Going through a third party doesn’t nullify the tariff as it is based upon country of manufacture. And like all tariff, the end consumer ends up paying the tariff anyway in some form.

5

Perhaps the Canadian standards are the same as those in the United States so that a car certified for sale in Canada would automatically meet US standards?

6

AIUI, the Chinese were planning to sell in the US, so my guess is they prepared for the hurdles they knew they would have to jump through to do so.

7

I am recently retired from Nissan here in Detroit. Our VP went to China and reviewed the cars there just after the Biden tariffs took place. They are excellent vehicles and there was no way any America manufacturer could match their pricing because the Chinese government supports the auto industry in ways we could never do.

Canada doesn’t really have a car industry per se, they are ancillary to US and EU manufacturers. Allowing them into Canada is a slap in the face to Trumps tariffs. Mexico is in a similar spot, but with a larger tie to the US automotive companies.

Also, China can supply the rare earth finished magnets to these cars at a fraction of what they sell to us. Which means they have advanced features like electromagnetic shocks that can provide a smoother ride.

8

Yes, Canadian standards for export to the US are identical to US with some exceptions. Cars meant to be sold only in Canada have some slight variations, mostly due to cold weather requirements. That and they don’t allow SXM in Canada to receive the Howard Stern or Playboy channel (if that is even still a thing).

And they like heated front windshields in Canada, which has an actual grid in the glass that is very hard to detect visually. And makes the glass very expensive to replace. You only see that on high end models here in the states.

9

While I haven’t seen one owned by a private party I have seen them some camouflaged vehicles on the streets outside of Detroit that I highly suspect are Chinese EVs being evaluated by our manufacturers. And no doubt being taken apart and reviewed.

10

Why would Canada not allow Howard Stern on satellite radio?

11

SiriusXM Canada lists Stern as one of their stations.

12

While the specific reason may have changed since I first starting supplying head units for the Canadian market 8 years ago, there are different SXM chips supplied to the Canadian market. So maybe they have settled with Howard. I was always told that was one of the reasons Canada had to have a separate radio in the vehicles exported to Canada. Howard wasn’t polite enough for Canadians is how the story went, so one of the parties changed.

They may have other channel differences now, but I just know that everything else in the radio was the same except the SXM chip. It was a pain to have to track two part numbers.

Still the cars made in Japan could have 20 different p/n’s for the same radio due to different tuners and antenna requirements around the world.

13

That reminds me: I was in Australia a few months ago and for the first time saw Chinese cars in person (They’re fairly popular there.) They looked quite nice!

14

As a Canadian, I’d be happy to buy and drive a Chinese EV. They are reportedly budget friendly and well made. Other than food, a massive amount of my personal consumer purchases are made in China - I have no concern adding cars into that mix.

Giving up North American auto market share to China will really be an own-goal by the US - but the Orange Man is trying hard to isolate all GM and Ford manufacturing back to the US so this is the result.
For now Canada is only allowing 49,000 EV’s into the Country - that is only about 3% of the total car market here. I imagine this will allow China to test the popularity - and then decide if they will allow Canada to negotiate opening up a BYD manufacturing plant here (the Ontario auto workers and factories will need something to do).

15

I’ll be moving to the Philippines soon and will be looking at Chinese vehicles there as well. Still, I would prefer an electric hybrid vehicle myself as I am not sure if I want to be limited in my travel range or be dependant on an unstable power grid.

16

Before you could buy Telsa Model 3 in Canada, there were a number of issues. They were really stupid - Canada rquires the seatbelt release button to be red, wherease originally the Teslas were black. For some models of cars, you needed t buy a different shape of headlight glass to import them, something about beam shape. There was some fine print I vaguely recall about a vehicle having to be 5 years old or older to be imported unless it met certain safety standards. Transport Canada had a big long list on their web page at the time of vehicles and (minor) modifications needed, i assume the USA has similar lists. (Would I be surprised if the USA required all vehicles to do an exhaust emissions test?) I see right-hand-drive and tiny Japanese trucks on the roads occasionally, imported I presume by car enthusiasts.

The problem is, the US auto industry is (was?) incredibly integrated. Parts and assemblies went back and forth across the border, and other parts came from Mexico to USA and Canadian assembly plants. Slapping tariffs on all this made things very complicated and raised the prices of Detroit-mobiles. Which is counterproductive, because the cost of Hyundai’s or Toyotas or BMWs did not change for Canadians. Even Teslas - they could import from the German factory rather than the USA and avoid the counter-tariff.

The purpose of the 100% tariff was to give the big Detroit Two-and-a-half time to adapt to the competition. I’m not sure how long this would need to go on. Canada went along with Biden as a joint effort, due to our American auto plants, before the Trump tariffs. The tariffs was the thanks we got, not to mention coercion to move those plants from Ontario to the USA. (Plus the current administration is not pushing EV’s either) Meanwhile, the Chinese retailiated with high tariffs on assorted Canadian agricultural products, especially canola. So the Canadian logicl was, we owe nothing to the USA any more if they won’t at least let things be.

Besides, nobody makes equivalent entry-level EV’s in Canada.

But to return to the OP’s question - unless they find some excuse to ban the vehicle, then you pay whatever the tariff is to import a Chinese EV - basically, 100%. Then, if the US states are like our provinces, there’s a sales tax on the purchase of the vehicle when you register it. Not sure if it includes a tax on the amount of the import tax…

Presumably for the North American market (i.e. Canada) the charger socket will be NACS compatible, i.e. Tesla plug. I would hope that the chargers, at least the home charger, would compatible with the rest of the market, be no different than any other slow charger. In the end, there’s only one way to find out - wait and see.

17

It wasn’t a Howard Stern issue, it was a Canadian Content (CANCON) issue which mandates media providers carry a certain percentage of Canadian produced content. There were a number of Canadian only channels in both French and English. Sirius Canada started as a partnership between Sirius US, CBC, and the Slaight Family who used to own Standard Media.

18

There are a few steps, but nothing crazy.

19

Here’s an issue that may not be important for most consumers, but is interesting:
Privacy, and personal tracking and eavesdropping.

The Chinese car company BYD tracks its cars

The Israeli army was providing BYD cars to some senior officers for personal use, but switched to other brands, due to fear of espionage.

Now, we all know that in today’s world, Big Brother is already in our pockets, cell phones, smart watches, and on TicTok, etc. And car insurance companies would probably love to see BYD’s biometric data. But I kinda don’t like it.

20

It is my understanding that neither the UK or Australia tariff chinese EVs.

If you use postal code 2000 (or some other australian postal code) you can check out BYD prices in Australia.

The atto starts at 24k AUD$, which is about 11k USD. The sealion 8, which seems to be their most advanced vehicle is about 38k USD. Their EV truck is about the same price.