EU Tariffs On China-Made Tesla EVs To Be Lowered Further — Rumor

I thought a month ago that we had received the final figures for EU-imposed tariffs on electric vehicles made in China. Yes, those figures still needed to be approved by the European Union member states, but after a lengthy process and the tariffs being adjusted (mostly downward) after further review, I thought they were done. Not quite.

First of all, from that announcement slightly more than a month ago, here were the figures:

• Tesla went from 20.8% to 9%
• BYD went from 17.4% to 17%
• Geely went from 19.9% to 19.3%
• SAIC from 37.6% to 36.3%.
• Generic tariffs for Chinese EV producers went from 20.8% to 21.3%.

Also note that all of these tariffs are on top of the base 10% tariff on EV imports that the EU has in place.

Now, however, there’s rumor that Tesla’s tariff rate will be dropped even further! Some other EV producers will also see reduced tariffs, according to sources who talked to Bloomberg. Tesla’s tariff rate will reportedly drop from 9% to 7.8%.

“Tesla’s proposed rate will be revised to just below 8%, from 9%, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes have not yet been announced. The EU is making the revisions due to new information that companies have provided, the people said,” Bloomberg writes.

Furthermore, regarding companies that didn’t cooperate with the investigation, they are said to be going from 37.6% to 36.3%.

We’ll see what the final numbers actually end up being, but Tesla’s reduction from 20.8% down to 7.8% is a huge difference for the automaker. That should help to keep the Tesla Model 3 competitive in the EU.