The EU’s struggle with electric cars made in China has been going on for a long time, so the European Parliament decided on additional tariffs on car imports from China. This will further affect some of the European manufacturers that have plants in China, such as Volvo, who are already struggling with the uncompetitive prices of electric vehicles made in China. To avoid additional tariffs that will come into effect in Q3 2024, Volvo is preparing production lines at the Ghent plant for its EX30 model, which is currently being assembled in China.

The Volvo EX30 is the smallest model in the Swedish manufacturer’s fleet but also the best-selling car, achieving outstanding results in the European market with 13,000 deliveries, despite the decrease in demand for EVs.

The new tariffs that the European Union has decided to introduce on cars manufactured in China will certainly affect car prices. That’s why manufacturers have few options, and the least expectation is that manufacturers will take on additional price burdens in order to maintain demand for their cars. Another possibility is an increase in prices, which would mean less demand, while the best decision would be to produce cars on European soil, which Volvo will do.

However, not all manufacturers can transfer the production of their cars to European soil, but Volvo still can, which is why the company decided to close its factory in Ghent, Belgium for seven days and send more than 6,500 employees on vacation while preparations are underway to install a new production lines for the production of the new EX30, which will start from 2025. The Ghent plant is one of the most profitable for the Swedish-Chinese brand, which currently produces the EX40 and EX40 models. However, there is still enough capacity in Ghent to produce the EX30 with which Volvo will achieve the maximum production volume. Last year, about 230,000 units left the factory in Ghent, of which 60 percent were electric cars.

Source: Volvo

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