On a recent Monday, Dougal Keith drove an electric car out of his dealership’s showroom in Leeds, in northern England, and hit the accelerator.
The car, a Chinese-made BYD Seal Excellence, can reach 60 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds — a key selling point. Another is the price tag, about 48,000 pounds ($64,400), which is 20 percent cheaper than a top-range Tesla Model 3.
Mr. Keith, who has been selling cars for more than four decades, said customers were skeptical of buying vehicles made in China when he opened a showroom in 2023 for BYD, China’s largest automaker. Now, he has six dealerships devoted to the brand.
“Some people have the perception that because it’s Chinese it’s going to be made cheaply,” he said. But then, he would ask them, “Where do you think your iPhone is assembled?”
Chinese cars are rapidly gaining ground in Britain, driven by a combination of factors. The lack of steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles — unlike in the European Union or the United States, where officials see the levies as a way to protect domestic production — means the cars can be sold in Britain at better prices. And British car buyers are not particularly loyal to brands, with no major mass-market British carmaker to support.
Last month, roughly a dozen Chinese automakers, like BYD, Chery and Geely, accounted for 13 percent of new car registrations in Britain, roughly double their market share a year ago, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
“The pace is like nothing the market has ever seen before,” said Ian Plummer, the chief commercial officer of Autotrader, Britain’s largest online car marketplace. BYD and Chery, which sell brands Jaecoo and Omoda, are gaining market share in Britain five or six times as fast as previous entrants, like Tesla a decade ago and South Korea’s Kia in the 1990s, he noted.
