New EU Tariffs on Chinese Cars Could Crush Sales of New Electric MINI Cooper & Aceman

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The European Union (with the UK likely following suit) has announced a 38.1% tariff on all Chinese made cars. Meant to protect European automakers from state subsidized Chinese imports, the tariffs will likely have an unintended consequence of killing sales of European engineered cars made in China like the new electric MINI Cooper and Aceman.

The issue MINI find itself stems from plans made 6-7 years ago – well before the current global trade war started. The concept was simple. Design and engineer new MINIs in Europe. Then leverage Chinese EV tech, know-how and cheap labor to build them. That would alow BMW to export the cars globally and achieve profitability despite MINI’s smaller sales figures. That all went wrong starting with US tariffs in 2018 that have now been matched by European ones.

The result of this new 38.1% tariff would be an MSRP increase of more than €13,000 to the price of the J01 Cooper. That would immediately make it uncompetitive against other small European cars and essentially kill sales for all but the most diehard fans of the brand.

There is a bright spot on the horizon. MINI is expanding production of both the J01 MINI Cooper and J05 MINI Aceman to its Oxford UK plant in 2026. This will allow them to be imported not just to North America (without tariffs) but also now Europe.

But 2026 is still 18 months away. What these new rules will mean for MINI and how they’ll impact the UK will become more clear in the weeks ahead.

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