By Victoria Waldersee<\/p>\n
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola K\u00e4llenius said on Wednesday the German automaker was urging the European Union to find an “equitable solution” to create a level-playing field for China-made electric vehicles in Europe.<\/p>\n
A pure tariff barrier was the “crudest instrument” that could be applied, he told reporters on the sidelines of the Shanghai auto show.<\/p>\n
“We need to seek win wins. A conversation about a level playing field in an open market is always legitimate. But a pure tariff barrier is the crudest instrument you can apply,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We have wished for the EU and negotiators on the Chinese side to come up with an equitable solution and from what I have read and heard, they are in discussions. History tells us that economies exposed to the full force of competition are the most innovative. That is what we would like.”<\/p>\n
The EU increased tariffs on Chinese-built EVs to as much as 45.3% last October, but Brussels and Beijing have floated the idea of lifting the tariffs through possible commitments to minimum prices, known as price undertakings for imported cars.<\/p>\n
The European Commission has said it is willing to continue negotiating an alternative to tariffs with China, which included tariffs of 17.0% for vehicles made by BYD, 18.8% for Geely and 35.3% for SAIC, on top of the EU’s standard car import duty of 10%.<\/p>\n
The discussions to potentially find a truce over the longstanding spat, which has also roiled French cognac makers as Beijing took retaliatory trade action, come as U.S. President Donald Trump has embarked on a trade war with some of the United States’ closest trading partners, including the EU and China.<\/p>\n
Mercedes on Tuesday ahead of the opening of the Shanghai autoshow unveiled a new all-electric luxury limousine van series called “Vision V” with some of the vehicles to be produced in China.<\/p>\n
K\u00e4llenius said on Wednesday he expected to see momentum build in the upper end of the segment for electric vehicles in the next 2-3 years. Plug-in hybrids would likely continue to co-exist with fully electric offerings, he added, at least until 2030.<\/p>\n
Like many other foreign automakers, Mercedes-Benz’s sales have dropped in China, hit hard by stiff competition from local rivals and as a sputtering economy saps consumer confidence.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Writing by Brenda Goh; Editing by Jamie Freed and Michael Perry)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Victoria Waldersee SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola K\u00e4llenius said on Wednesday the German automaker was urging the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1395,1305,24022,2000,299,5187,1699,24024,2184,24023],"class_list":{"0":"post-43063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-electric-vehicles","10":"tag-equitable-solution","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-german-automaker","16":"tag-mercedes-benz","17":"tag-ola-kallenius"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114385721186103741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}