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