The charming, retro-looking Renault 5 outsells the sleek Tesla Model Y in Britain. On the other hand, no EV made it into the top 10 best-selling cars. With us it’s a completely different story.
The Dutch top 10 of October contains four EVs, as well as two cars that also have an electric variant. The Tesla Model Y (5th place) also sold better here in October than the Renault 5 (26th).
Are you ready for a Jaecoo?
The most striking newcomer in the British sales statistics is the petrol-powered Jaecoo 7. With more than 2,600 registered units, the Chinese SUV was in sixth place in the overall ranking. It thus defeated both the Renault 5 and the Tesla Model Y.
The Jaecoo brand, part of the large Chery group, now sells more cars on the British island than established names such as Citroën and Lexus. And that didn’t even require a major national campaign à la Daewoo.
As a reminder: because of the almost identical brand name, we were reminded of Daewoo, a Korean brand within the GM group that later went under the better-known brand name Chevrolet. But for a while in the late 1990s, Daewoo polluted all Dutch billboards with images of converted Opel Kadetts with the slogan: ‘You are ready for a Daewoo’.
Anyway; unlike most EU citizens, many Britons are already ready for a Jaecoo. Jaecoo is not the only Chinese manufacturer that scored well in Great Britain in October. BYD also showed good results and achieved better sales figures than Dacia, Cupra and Mini.
Lower import tax
The fact that Chinese brands are doing so well in the United Kingdom is also because the British apply an import tariff of only 10 percent for cars from China. In the countries of the European Union this is on average 21 percent, but the rate may differ per car brand.
Because of our CO2 tax – better known as bpm – things are not going so well in the Netherlands with cheap Chinese petrol cars. Here, cars from China are only sold as (plug-in) hybrid or EV.
The plug-in hybrid Jaecoo 7 SHS (Super Hybrid System) costs 37,900 euros and has an official electric range of 90 kilometers. Although that car certainly has its qualities, overall we were not super enthusiastic about the Super Hybrid (see the article above).
In Belgium, the petrol variant of the Jaecoo 7 is offered, also for 37,900 euros.
