Chinese auto brands are gaining an increasing stronghold on Britain's car market but many drivers still have major reservations and questions they want answering before even considering buying one.
Registration figures for 2024 show a 14 per cent surge in sales of models from the four major Chinese makers now available in the UK: BYD, MG, Omoda and Ora.
These made up 5 per cent of all new cars bought in Britain last year, representing almost 100,000 motors entering the road.
Most are electric vehicles as China continues to reap the reward of investing early - and heavily - in battery tech ahead of European rivals, a move experts predict will bring these brands tremendous success in the next decade.
By the time the UK's ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars comes into force in 2030, Chinese manufacturers are predicted to account for a quarter of the UK's EV market representing 400,000 cars on our roads, according to Auto Trader's Road to 2030 Report.
But with prices typically cheaper than well-known mainstream car firms from Europe, Japan and Korea, should you be seriously thinking about buying a Chinese car now?
We've teamed up with Auto Express to answer the pressing questions you likely have.
This ranges from how ethical it is to own a car built in China, address concerns regarding spyware technology, cover recent insurance issues and explain what makes them so affordable.
Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow when we give a full rundown of which brands are already available in the UK - and which are due to break into the UK market in 2025.
Who is most likely to buy a Chinese car today?
Auto Trader, the nation's biggest online car platform, carried out a poll of 3,985 adults earlier this year specifically asking their thoughts on Chinese cars.
The headline finding was that two in five drivers today would consider purchasing a car built by a Chinese brand.
It found the greatest support from the 17-to-34 age group, with 57 per cent of those surveyed attracted by factors including innovative technology and affordability compared to a quarter of over 55s.
And older drivers are generally a lot less accepting of the idea of driving a Chinese car.
The research found two fifths of motorists aged 55 and over are concerned by data security and privacy risks when buying Chinese products, with 43 per cent of the same age group mistrusting the quality of goods.
Ian Plummer, Auto Trader's commercial director, said: 'Consumers' trust in the quality and safety of these new Chinese entrants remains mixed, particularly among older buyers.
'To succeed, Chinese brands will need to focus on reassuring consumers – through strong safety ratings, data security, expert reviews and customer service – that they are as good as the more trusted traditional manufacturers.'
However, other reports suggest there is no generational gap when it comes to appetite for Chinese cars.
Ginny Buckley, founder of Electrifying.com, said a poll of 1,000 visitors to her EV website last year found that 80 per cent of drivers are 'not concerned about where in the world their vehicle is made'.
In a more recent survey, she said 61 per cent of EV owners said they'd be happy to buy from a Chinese brand, while 56 per cent of potential EV buyers expressed the same view.
Why are Chinese EVs so cheap?
'Chinese cars have gained a reputation for being cheap, but this isn't necessarily because they are of inferior quality. There are several factors contribute to their low price tags,' explains Tom Jervis, consumer reporter at Auto Express.
The first is that labour costs in China are far lower than in central Europe.
In August 2023, BYD advertised jobs at its Shenzhen factory with a salary of between 5,000 and 7,000 yuan (£555-£777) per month, while reports show that base salaries in Chinese car makers' factories can be as low as £260 per month.
'That's more than five times less than what the average UK worker earning minimum wage would make in the same period,' Tom says.
Secondly, Chinese firms have a big advantage using domestic resources.
Almost all of the components and materials used in Chinese vehicles are either manufactured or mined in China, greatly reducing transport and import costs.
Finally, there's the widely discussed - and controversial - issue of subsidies from Beijing.
That's because many of the Chinese brands we already know are either partially or fully owned by the Chinese government.
'The industry is estimated to have received as much as £185billion in subsidies since 2009, helping to keep costs low for consumers,' Tom explains.
To level the playing field, the European Union recently implemented additional import tariffs ranging from 10 per cent to nearly 40 per cent.
Unsurprisingly, companies like BYD and SAIC are keen to reverse these measures.
The United States has gone further, with former President Joe Biden introducing a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese-made electric cars last year, effectively doubling their price.
Meanwhile, the UK has yet to take similar action, making it an enticing market for China's car makers.
These brands have also largely been credited for making EVs more affordable to Britons in recent years.
They generally occupy the sub-£30,000 market, offering 29 EVs in this segment in 2025 - up from just nine at the beginning of last year.
Among these 'cheap' electric cars is the Leapmotor T03 (£15,995) and Ora 03 (£24,995).
However, Auto Trader believes Chinese manufacturers have 'not yet fully flexed their pricing power' in the UK, with many RRP prices lower in their domestic market.
For example, the BYD Dolphin RRP in China can be as much as £10,000 less than the UK.
Is buying a Chinese EV ethical?
Buying an electric car is, for many, a choice of ethics – making sacrifices in some areas to pick the best type of car for our planet.
Accusations of human rights abuses and unsustainable mining of precious metals has led some to question whether purchasing an EV from China is any more ethical than buying a polluting SUV produced on the continent.
Last year, charity Amnesty International evaluated 13 of the world's largest EV makers in terms of their impact on human rights and the Chinese brand BYD was ranked the poorest in this regard, primarily due to limited or no publicly available information on how they identify and address human rights risks in their supply chains.
Geely was another brand to perform poorly.
'This lack of transparency raises concerns about issues such as forced labour, unsafe working conditions and environmental harm,' Tom said.
'It is unclear how these companies therefore take steps to avoid causing human rights or environmental harms or what measures they might take to mitigate harms if they cannot be avoided.'
However, Amnesty also said that 'the ethicality of an EV depends on the practices of the specific manufacturer, not where it's based. While some Chinese manufacturers, such as BYD, scored poorly due to a lack of transparency, non-Chinese companies also have significant shortcomings.'
Are Chinese cars spying on us?
One of the biggest concerns with Chinese cars is that they are fitted with spyware technology to gather intelligence on the Western world.
Fears were triggered last year when former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said that some EVs could 'be easily turned into mobile intelligence gathering platforms'.
Alicia Kearns, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: 'There are long-standing concerns about cellular IOT modules [connectivity devices] or SIM cards which enable cars to be tracked and potentially listened to.'
And according to more recent reports, the Ministry of Defence's top brass have been told not to talk in Chinese-made electric cars over fears manufacturers are eavesdropping on top-secret information.
The government department has leased hundreds of Chinese EVs to meet net zero targets, but it is feared inbuilt microphones might be recording and transmitting conversations.
As such, a security notice has been issued across the MoD banning any sensitive conversations from happening inside the vehicles, it has been leaked.
But not everyone is quite so troubled by spyware claims.
Dr Andy Palmer, former chief executive of Aston Martin and operating chief of Nissan, says Britons are wrong to be suspicious of Chinese brands.
'Smart electronics and AI software are a phenomena of our time, and proliferate into almost everything we own. For some, this has raised concern about the growth in Chinese EVs and the risk of spying,' the founder Palmer Energy, supplier of home, commercial and grid scale batteries, said.
'We should be cognisant of the risk but not attribute this only to China and only to EVs.
'The same functions can exist on internal combustion cars, and the risk from phones is probably greater.'
Are Chinese EV expensive to insure? And why were some being written off for minor damage in 2024?
The idea that a brand-new, mass-produced car could be considered 'uninsurable' might seem unthinkable in 2025, but problems with supply chains and a lack of widespread technical knowledge have made things difficult for owners of some Chinese makes and models.
In 2024, This is Money reported that both BYD and GWM Ora owners faced huge issues when insurance companies began writing off the former's Seal saloon and the latter's Funky Cat (now known as the 03) hatchback for even minor damage deemed uneconomical for repair.
This was due to a lack of available parts and expertise to repair them, which in turn sent premiums spiralling for these particular models, with some insurers refusing to cover them at all.
Since then, Chinese car makers have worked to reassure buyers and insurers.
GWM set up its own battery inspection and repair scheme to prevent unnecessary write-offs. Jaecoo told Auto Express that almost all parts for the 7 SUV are available within 24 to 48 hours, and BYD stated that 90% of parts are now available within 48 hours.
'However, while insuring a Chinese car is no longer impossible, it may not be cheap,' Tom warns.
'Research indicates that Chinese models tend to occupy higher insurance groups than their European and South Korean rivals.
'Owners of EVs in general face high insurance costs - Teslas, for example, are notoriously expensive to cover - so this is something to keep in mind,' he said.
Are Chinese cars reliable?
Reliability is difficult to measure, though there are plenty of UK-based surveys of car owners that rank brands by how dependable they've been.
However, given the infancy of so many Chinese makes, most brands haven't been on Britain's roads long enough - or there are not adequate sample sizes of drivers - to provide an accurate impression of reliability.
The only manufacturer that's been on sale long enough to be reported on in surveys is MG - and it hasn't done particularly well in one of the biggest polls of late.
In What Car?'s most recent Reliability Survey conducted in 2024, MG scored lowest marks for dependability against every other volume car maker based on the performance of models up to five years old (dating back to 2019).
This was due to a high fault rate, with 37 per cent of owners saying their had experienced issues with their Chinese cars.
Slow repairs were also a massive issue: three-fifths of faulty MGs were out of action for more than a week as garages struggled to fic them.
The lowest scoring model in its line-up was the MG 4, with a rating of 63.8 per cent, and the MG ZS EV wasn’t far behind on 69.3 per cent.
Only the MG5 gained a creditable 92.0 per cent score, What Car? said.
Hundreds of MG 4 owners also contacted us last year about concerns with the vehicle's lane keeping and lane departure warning systems, which have steered drivers into dangerous scenarios for no reason.
Do Chinese car brands offer long warranties?
The established Chinese brands provide British customers with extensive warranties.
BYD, for instance, offers basic cover for six years of 150,000km (93,750 miles), whichever comes first.
However, for the battery itself, the warranty is for eight years and 200,000km (125,000 miles) and a minimum battery health of 70 per cent. This means the battery must retain at least 70 per cent of its capacity over the warranty period or it will be replaced, which is a similar scenario with Tesla.
MGs are covered for seven years or 80,000 miles, though again the battery is considered separately with an eight-year, 100k miles warranty and the same requirement as BYD and Tesla that the battery adheres to 70 per cent capacity during this period.
While these warranties are relatively standard across the market, some may have concerns about whether they will be upheld, especially given the issues around repairs we mentioned previously when discussing insurance costs and write offs.
These will likely be stoked by what happened with US start-up Fisker last year, when the brand filed for bankruptcy in June leaving hundreds of UK owners with vehicles they likely cannot have maintained or repaired.
Tom says that because Chinese brands, such as BYD, produce their own lithium-ion batteries, this should give confidence to buyers that they are able to provide replacement units for the car's most expensive part.
Want to know which Chinese brands are already available in the UK - and which are due to arrive in 2025? Check back tomorrow for our second in-depth dive into Chinese cars.
