⚡ The short version
Britain will not put extra tariffs on Chinese cars. Business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds says protection would be reciprocated and cost British exporters more than it saves, and he would rather Chinese carmakers build in Britain than be blocked out of it. On 18 September The Daily Telegraph called that approach naive. Chinese brands already took more than 15% of UK new car registrations in the first eight months of 2026, and Britain's flat 10% import duty is now the lowest barrier in Europe. Here is what the political row does — and does not — change for UK buyers.
Britain will not follow the European Union into higher tariffs on Chinese cars, and that decision has turned into a public argument about whether the country is defending its car industry or giving it away.
Speaking at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking — where the supercar maker announced a £500 million investment in the UK — business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds told Auto Express on 18 September that the government has no plans to raise duties on Chinese vehicle imports.
"You keep all these things under careful review, but the fundamental thing is [British car-making is] an export-led industry," he said. "If you put trade protections up, they'll probably be reciprocated and you'll lose things. My primary concern is making sure our export markets are open and JLR sells a lot to China."
He also framed cheap, high-tech Chinese electric cars as something British buyers should be allowed to keep getting. "The Chinese economic model produces things at incredible cost, and there is a lot of innovation there," he said. "Should we be open to innovation… and trying to bring it to the UK, made to our labour and regulatory standards? I think we've got to be open to that."
The tariff gap, in one paragraph
A Chinese-built car landing in Britain pays the standard 10% import duty and nothing more. The same car landing in the EU pays that 10% plus a countervailing duty calculated per brand according to the level of state subsidy behind it. That takes BYD's effective EU rate to 27% and SAIC — the owner of MG — to 45.3%. The gap between 10% and 45.3% is the entire argument.
The numbers behind the row
In 2023, the year BYD joined MG on sale in Britain, Chinese brands took 4% of the UK new car market, or 83,000 registrations. In the first eight months of 2026 the same group registered 223,000 cars — more than 15% of everything sold — with Jaecoo, Omoda, Chery and Leapmotor among the new arrivals pushing the total up.
On the continent the picture is different in one important way: British buyers now account for roughly one in four MGs, one in five BYDs, and about half of all Chery, Omoda and Jaecoo sales in Europe combined. In other words, the UK is not a sideshow to the European market. For several of these brands it is the main event.
The Telegraph's answer: "naive"
On 18 September The Daily Telegraph pushed back hard. Its column argued that by refusing tougher protection while actively courting Chinese investment, Britain is effectively conceding the contest for car-manufacturing leadership, and framed the moment as the West beginning to "surrender" the sector.
The piece drew the contrast with Washington. President Trump has said Chinese carmakers are welcome to build plants in the United States provided they hire American workers — while finished Chinese vehicles stay shut out of the market, after tariffs that began at 100% in 2024 and have since been raised as high as 245%. The Telegraph conceded that this "block the imports, keep the investment" formula can add jobs and consumer choice, but still argued that Chinese cars bring national security risks, and criticised the UK government's posture towards Beijing as naive.
It is worth being precise about what is actually new here. The UK's tariff position has not changed — it never followed the EU into countervailing duties. What has changed is that the position is now being publicly attacked from the right as well as the left of the argument, at the exact moment Chinese brands are crossing the 15% share line.
Nissan wants the opposite
The loudest industry voice on the other side is Nissan, one of the largest manufacturing employers in the UK. Announcing a £170 million investment at its Sunderland plant to build the new Kicks, Nissan's regional boss Max Messina told the Financial Times that Britain may have to fall into line with European rates to protect access to the market once the EU's "Made in Europe" content rules bite.
"I assume that to have the UK [as] part of the EU, Europe cannot have corridors to the UK where Chinese are going to flow to the market through the UK," he said. "The whole UK has to adjust some of their tariff policy."
The awkward part is that Nissan is simultaneously negotiating with Chery — China's biggest global auto exporter — about taking spare capacity at that same Sunderland plant. So the company is asking for a harder line on Chinese imports while working on a deal that depends on Chinese investment arriving.
What Britain has to lose
Reynolds' counter-argument is arithmetic. Cars were the UK's single largest goods export to China, worth £3.5 billion in the four quarters to the end of March 2026, out of £31.4 billion of goods and services exported to China overall in the year to the end of 2025. Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin and McLaren all have meaningful exposure to Chinese buyers.
Any retaliation would land on exactly the high-margin, high-value end of British manufacturing — the part of the industry that employs the most skilled labour per car built. That is the trade the government is unwilling to make in exchange for shielding UK buyers from cheaper Chinese EVs.
Europe has already moved on to hybrids
The UK's decision is being tested on a second front. Having imposed countervailing duties on Chinese battery-electric cars, Brussels has now asked China to voluntarily cap its hybrid exports at around 15% of the EU market; Chinese hybrids currently take roughly a third. An EU official has said the bloc will act itself if China does not.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has described the EU's goods trade deficit with China — €360.6 billion in 2025 — as unsustainable, and warned of a second "China shock" running through European industry. Germany, which opposed the original EV tariffs, is shifting too: vice chancellor and finance minister Lars Klingbeil said on 17 September that the EU should consider tariffs on Chinese plug-in hybrids and tighten localisation rules for Chinese firms operating in Europe.
For Britain, the practical question is whether the same pressure is eventually applied to hybrids here. Nothing in current policy suggests it will be — but nothing guarantees it will not be either.
What this means for UK buyers
Prices are unchanged, and that is the real story. No new duty means no overnight price rise on the Chinese EVs already on sale here. The competitive pressure that has pushed entry-level electric pricing down over the past two years stays in place.
Choice keeps widening. The brands that entered behind the tariff wall are now expanding their line-ups rather than retreating, and the UK remains the easiest European market to launch into.
Three things are still worth pricing in, though.
1. Residual values. A market where several fast-growing brands compete hard on price is a market where used values settle lower and less predictably. If you buy outright or on PCP, the guaranteed future value matters more than the list price. Our guide to EV leasing in the UK and used EV buying guide cover how to judge that.
2. Servicing, parts and insurance. Dealer network depth varies enormously between the established Chinese brands and the newest entrants. A competitive quote depends on parts availability and repair times as much as on the car itself — see our EV insurance explainer.
3. Policy reversibility. The UK's tariff decision is a political choice, not a fixed rule, and it is being contested in public. The ZEV mandate consultation that could soften the 2030 target runs to 23 October, and the £3,750 Electric Car Grant still applies only below a £37,000 list price. Anyone buying on a three or four-year horizon is buying into a policy environment that can move — check the road tax calculator for the current rates before you commit.
The bottom line
Britain is not going to tax Chinese cars, at least for now, and the reason is not sympathy for Beijing — it is that the UK sells more cars to China than it protects by shutting Chinese cars out. The cost of that trade-off is shouldered by domestic manufacturers competing on price and by a media argument that will not go away. The benefit lands on UK buyers, who keep access to the cheapest and fastest-moving part of the European EV market.
For the wider context, our analysis of the 777,000 Chinese cars shipped to the EU explains why the UK sits outside those numbers, the Jaecoo 7 becoming the UK's second best-selling car shows how fast that access has translated into sales, and the AION UT launch is a live example of a new brand pricing straight into the gap. You can compare running costs side by side with the charging cost calculator, or check real-world range in our electric car library.
Sources
Auto Express — No more tariffs on Chinese cars says Government, 18 September 2026 (https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/370466/no-more-tariffs-chinese-cars-says-government) · Guancha (观察者网) via Sina Finance — 英媒先跳脚：这是向中国汽车"投降", 18 September 2026, reporting on a Daily Telegraph column (https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2026-09-18/doc-inisheny8349380.shtml) · Guancha (观察者网) via Sina Finance — 面对中国混动汽车，英国仍拒绝与欧盟同加关税, 18 September 2026 (https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2026-09-18/doc-inisfyez0242799.shtml) · Eastern Eye — Could Chinese EV tariffs put Britain's luxury car exports at risk?, 17 September 2026 (https://www.easterneye.biz/could-chinese-ev-tariffs-put-britains-luxury-car-exports-at-risk/) · Financial Times reporting on Nissan's Max Messina, cited in the above, September 2026
