The Tragic Fate Of China's Mini Electric BMW In The European Union Market

Mini Cooper EV. (Doc. BMW Group)

JAKARTA - European car manufacturers, especially Germany, are the most aggressively opposed to the enactment of the European Union's new tariff rules on Chinese electric cars.

The deadline for implementing the rules is July 4, after which the investigation will continue until the end of October. This pause could give Beijing and Brussels time to make an agreement to ease their impact.

This latest BMW-made Mini electric car in China, for example, is threatened with a high European Union (EU) rate of 38.1 percent if EU tariff rules come into effect. This could be a major blow to sales of the electric car, while BMW is relying on any sales of electric cars projected to meet increasingly stringent carbon emissions targets.

Launching Reuters, June 15, the mass production of the Mini electricity, which is priced at around 35,000 euros (around Rp618 million), was carried out by a joint venture between BMW and Great Wall Motor from China. Production began late last year, shortly after the EU began its investigation into China's EV subsidy.

Since production is still new, according to an undisclosed source, the joint venture cannot fulfill a European Commission survey with the level of detail required to be categorized as a cooperative company in the investigation.

Meanwhile, according to a European Commission document, cooperative companies received lower rates in the range of 17.4 percent - 21 percent. This includes BMW Brilliance Automotive, another BMW joint venture company that produces iX3 electric cars for exports to Europe from China since 2021.

BMW declined to comment. BMW CEO Oliver Zipse previously said that this tariff was a "wrong move", in line with concerns other German automakers fear a trade war that could lead to a return fee for cars exported from Germany to China.

The European Commission stated that joint ventures that produce cars in China will be subject to import duties, without explaining whether newly formed joint ventures could benefit from a lower 21 percent tariff for cooperative companies in the investigation.