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Chinese carmakers have roughly doubled their share of the European Union's new car market in the space of a year, intensifying the competitive squeeze on the bloc's established manufacturers as they juggle electrification costs and softening export demand. Industry figures for the opening four months of 2026 showed Chinese brands accounting for around 6 per cent of EU registrations, up from 3.2 per cent in the same period of 2025. Across the wider European market, including B

Renault is pushing deeper into Europe's defence build-up, unveiling a militarised vehicle developed with Thales as the French carmaker seeks fresh revenue streams amid a punishing downturn in its core automotive business. The two companies presented a prototype, named 4 Troop, at the Eurosatory defence and security fair outside Paris this week. Built on the Renault Rafale SUV rather than a purpose-made military chassis, the vehicle is fitted with Thales secure communications

Europe's car industry is confronting an awkward proposition. The Chinese manufacturer best placed to fill its idle factories is also the one its trade defences were built to keep out. BYD, China's largest electric-vehicle maker, has been in talks with Stellantis and other European producers about taking over underused plants rather than building from scratch, a strategy that would let it sidestep the provisional tariffs of up to 35 per cent that Brussels imposed on Chinese-bu

Ford has dropped the exclusively electric focus of its high-performance "Demonstrator" programme, the latest signal that the industry's retreat from battery power is broadening from the showroom to the racetrack, with implications for a European market already wrestling with softening EV demand. Ford Racing will continue developing the technology testbeds, which have included the Supervan 4.2, an F-150 Lightning Supertruck and a Mustang Cobra Jet, but will no longer confine t

Europe's carmakers are betting that a new wave of cut-price electric vehicles can blunt the advance of Chinese rivals, but the economics of the affordable EV remain stubbornly unforgiving. Stellantis and Renault are both pushing toward a roughly €15,000 battery-electric price point, with Stellantis planning to build affordable EVs in Italy by 2028. The Franco-Italian group has teased a full-electric revival of the Citroen 2CV among its planned entry-level E-Cars, framing nost

Tesla has mounted a striking recovery across Europe's largest electric-vehicle markets, with May registration figures pointing to a turnaround that complicates the picture for the region's own manufacturers as they scramble to defend share in a fast-electrifying market. The headline numbers were dramatic. New registrations rose 71% to 858 vehicles in Sweden, 136% to 1,750 in Denmark and 113% to 1,690 in Spain, according to data from Mobility Sweden, bilstatistik.dk and ANFAC

From 1 June, Europe's car manufacturers may for the first time report the full life-cycle carbon footprint of their vehicles under a common EU methodology, a quiet but consequential shift that recasts how the bloc measures the industry's environmental performance. The new framework moves beyond the tailpipe. Rather than counting only the emissions a car produces on the road, it captures the carbon embedded across a vehicle's entire life, from raw material extraction and batte

Europe’s automotive industry is confronting a difficult reality: the continent may have won time in the electric vehicle transition, but it has not secured control of the supply chain. That concern intensified this week after Chinese battery giant CATL signalled it would prioritise domestic manufacturers and long term strategic partners as global demand for lower cost battery cells accelerates into 2027. The announcement reverberated across Europe’s car sector, where executiv

Stellantis has set out a five-year, €60bn ($70bn) turnaround plan that bets the future of Europe's largest carmaking group on a tighter brand portfolio, cheaper development through Chinese partnerships and a more clinical use of factory capacity. Unveiling the "FaSTLAne 2030" strategy at the group's capital markets day in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on 21 May, chief executive Antonio Filosa committed Stellantis to 60 new models, positive free cash flow by 2027 and annual cost sav

Stellantis on Thursday unveiled a €60bn five-year strategy under chief executive Antonio Filosa, betting that a wave of new partnerships, sharper brand focus and an 800,000-unit cut to European capacity can arrest a market-share slide that has dogged the Franco-Italian carmaker since the Tavares era. Branded FaSTLAne 2030 and presented at the group's Auburn Hills investor day, the plan commits €36bn to vehicle development, with roughly 60% earmarked for North America, and ple

China's BYD has confirmed it is in active negotiations with Stellantis and other European carmakers to take over underused factories on the continent, in a move that threatens to invert the logic of Brussels' two-year-old tariff regime on Chinese electric vehicles. Speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference in London on 13 May, executive vice-president Stella Li said the world's largest EV manufacturer was "looking for any available plant in Europe" to absor

The European Union's retreat from a hard 2035 combustion-engine cutoff is gathering momentum in Parliament, handing the bloc's beleaguered carmakers a tactical win while reigniting a fight over the credibility of the green transition. The European Parliament rapporteur's report on the review of the CO2 regulation for cars and vans, published on 12 May, was welcomed by the manufacturers' association ACEA as a move toward a more balanced and technology-neutral framework. It bui