The EV features you won't see in the U.S.
The U.S. has punitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, which effectively blocks imports. Still, many Chinese EV brands are expanding their markets and going abroad with models that are both packed with features and cheaper.
Seventy percent of the nearly 1,300 cars on display at the Shanghai auto show, which ended last week, were electric vehicles.
They were mostly brands unfamiliar to Americans, such as China’s XPeng Motors, Deepal, and NIO. Chinese EV makers pack their cars with a lot of features.
XPeng’s flagship electric sedan, the P7+, is spacious with soft leather seats that also have heating, cooling and massage functions. It’s also equipped with an advanced driver-assistance system, and uses artificial intelligence to, for example, adapt the car to road conditions.
“If the car camera detects a pothole ahead, the car will adjust and make the damping softer with the magnetic ride control. This would allow for a smoother ride over the pothole,” XPeng product manager Xu Pengfei, said.
There are somewhere around 100 EV makers in China, and only the top five brands, which includes China’s BYD and Tesla, account for 62% of the Chinese EV market, according to the Shanghai-based strategy firm, Automobility. Many Chinese EV brands are struggling. A lot of them are looking to expand their market and go abroad.
Since 2023, EV makers have been in an intense price war — one which Tesla started, but couldn’t keep up. Chinese firms have their eyes on overseas markets, though many EV brands won’t touch the American or Canadian markets given the sky-high tariffs.
The P7+ will sell overseas at the end of the year, according to Xu. The model is in the premium range. It retails in China, before government subsidies and tax exemptions, for 208,000 yuan ($29,000). That money would only buy a basic EV in the U.S.
Xu said the P7+ is good value for money.
That selling point would translate well in Singapore, according to auto journalist Ju-Len Leow with the Singaporean Business Times.
In Singapore, a car could cost up to six times more than in the U.S. from various import duties and taxes.
“One of the things that Singaporean drivers are really sensitive to, at some level, is value for money,” Leow said. “Cars are so expensive that you when you punch that ticket, you really want to make sure that you punched it well.”
The electric SUV S09 model from Deepal under the Chinese state-owned automaker Changan, is equipped with soft leather seats that have massage functions, a mini fridge and a 21-inch screen in the backseat, which product manager Zhang pointed out would be a good fit for a young family.
For 239,900 yuan ($33,000), the SUV is like a living room on wheels. Chinese consumers are spoiled for choice.
“In this highly competitive market, we will provide them with creative products and functions that are more efficient, give better experiences at a cheaper price without sacrificing quality,” Zhang said.
He said one amazing feature of the car is an advanced driver-assistance system from Chinese tech giant Huawei.
“For example, I can set the navigation from my parking spot at home to the parking lot at work. I activate the autonomous driving, then let the car drive by itself the whole way, just like Tesla’s [full self-driving]. The difference is that FSD is based on vision technology and ours is based on lidar [or laser sensors]”, he said.
Zhang added that the system is only partially autonomous, which means the driver is always responsible for the vehicle.
China’s government has restricted automakers from exaggerating autonomous features after a fatal accident involving a Xiaomi vehicle.
Some of the coolest tech in Chinese EVs might not be exported.
“I'm actually seeing a lot of features in Chinese cars that are kind of stuck in China,” Leow said, adding that each country has different regulations on emerging technologies.
“There are a lot of advanced features in terms of the user interface, talking to your car, and being able to order a cup of coffee just by talking to your car, being able to, I would say, enjoy some of the semi-autonomous driving features. I think there are some features that China really leads the world in and because of regulation, they're kind of stuck in the country,” Leow said.
Of the 27.6 million passenger cars sold last year, 58% were new energy vehicles, which include battery electric, plug-ins and hybrids, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Out of those, XPeng sold 190,000 units, while Deepal sold 244,000 models. Neither manufacturer is profitable yet.
NIO isn’t either. Its latest luxury sedan, the ET9, is modeled in look and feel like a business jet.
“You drive this car, it's a little bit like driving a jet,” said NIO staffer David Zhang, unrelated to Deepal’s Zhang.
Even the seats look like the ones on a business jet.
The ET9 model, according to Zhang costs 808,000 yuan ($111,000) and started deliveries to customers in March.
The luxury sedan uses a technology where the steering wheel isn’t mechanically attached to the wheels. Instead they communicate through electronic signals, which he said makes steering more “accurate” in tight spaces.
Plus, with 35 speakers, car passengers can enjoy music with everyone in the car as a group, or crank up the volume to hear it louder from individual headrests.
Checking out the NIO ET9 is Stefan De Smet with the automaker Stellantis in Belgium. He said Chinese firms are setting EV trends.
“It's software. They're much further developed than the American or the European market. That's clear,” he said.
De Smet is the managing director of a Stellantis project helping Chinese EV firm Leapmotor sell in Europe.
“We have our eyes on the Chinese brands because we know they will come, but the question is when,” he said.
Like the U.S., Europe has tariffs on Chinese EVs, but at much lower rates — up to 30-some-percent, according to De Smet.
“Even with 30% of tariffs in Europe, that’s still much cheaper than the traditional European cars,” he said.
Additional research by Charles Zhang
