WHILE Western carmakers look warily upon the European expansion plans of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers, major German auto suppliers are eager to expand on existing partnerships in China and provide those rising manufacturers with European-made parts.

“Chinese manufacturers will adapt vehicles to the European market step by step through user experience and customer orientation,” Bosch CEO Stefan Hartung said at Munich’s IAA mobility show.

“This is a good way to do it and also quite natural for us as a supplier because we all know these manufacturers from our collaboration in China.”

“We also believe that ultimately this is positive for competition and the consumer,” Hartung added.

Bosch’s Chinese partnerships include developing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems for most of Chinese EV maker BYD’s cars, electric motors for luxury EV maker Human Horizons and is a supplier for Nio.

Chinese EV makers, including BYD, Nio, Xpeng and Leapmotor, are all targeting Europe’s EV market, where sales soared nearly 55% to about 820,000 vehicles in the first seven months of 2023, making up about 13% of all car sales.

The average EV in China cost less than 32,000 euros (US$34,350) in the first half of 2022 compared with 56,000 euros in Europe, according to researchers at Jato Dynamics.

That has Europe’s carmakers fretting about an “invasion” of cheap Chinese EVs that could undercut local manufacturers. UBS Group AG analysts wrote in an Aug. 31 report that BYD Co., China’s biggest-selling auto brand, has a 25% cost advantage over North American and European brands, giving the Shenzhen-based company ample firepower to undercut rivals.

But that isn’t the case for suppliers like ZF Friedrichshafen.

ZF has some 40 locations in China that generated about 20% of global sales in 2020 — and about 40% of its China revenue comes from Chinese carmakers.

“When we talk to our Chinese customers, there are very concrete plans to build plants in Europe,” ZF CEO Holger Klein said. “We are in discussions there.” ‌(SD-Agencies)