How is Europe reacting to the car offensive from China?

Is China's car industry heading for crisis? The Chinese car brand HiPhi is on the brink of collapse: the manufacturer of luxury electric cars costing over 100,000 euros only recently moved into the showroom at Munich Airport. Audi used to present its models there. Now Chinese media are reporting that HiPhi has stopped production at its only plant in Yancheng. Just 13,000 of the brand's cars found a buyer last year. It will not be the last Chinese car brand to have to give up: There are over 100 car manufacturers in China. Together, they could build more than 50 million cars a year, reports Jörg Wuttke. He was President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China until last year.

Wuttke quoted the figure in his presentation at the Technical Congress of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) in Berlin. 50 million cars, that would be two thirds of global car production and twice as many as are sold in China. That's why China is looking for salvation in exports. "But they don't even have the ships to export the cars," says Wuttke, who has lived in Beijing for more than 30 years. This is one of the reasons why Chinese manufacturers are only running their plants at 50 percent capacity and only built 23 million cars last year. Such huge overcapacities would not only be the death sentence for a niche supplier like HiPhi. Without massive state support, many car manufacturers in China would hardly be able to survive,

The Chinese car industry is currently building its own fleet of transport ships in order to better utilize the factories with exports - especially to Europe. The USA has already made it clear that it will not allow the impending car tsunami from China into the country under any circumstances. That leaves Europe as an outlet. Wuttke: "The question is how we react to this." (aum)