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Great Wall is preparing to build the next version of the electric Mini through a joint venture with BMW in China. The company is also looking to secure a European site in time.

Henrik Fisker, a former BMW and Aston Martin executive who runs the start-up electric vehicle company Fisker, said eventually the quality of the products will win over new customers.

“When I look at these Chinese cars, I actually don’t see any real price advantages,” he said, while sitting in the new Fisker Ocean manufactured by Magna Steyr in Austria.

“Quite frankly, I think, yeah, some of them are pretty nice electric cars.”

European carmakers face rough road in China

China’s car industry leads the world in sales of electric vehicles, leaving foreign companies at risk of being left behind.

“Among the top 15 EV producers in China, only four can be considered to have foreign ownership,” according to a new report by Berlin-based think-tank Merics. “In 2021, BMW and Mercedes-Benz had market shares of less than 0.3 per cent in China’s EV market, having sold fewer than 10,000 units each in a market of 3.3mn units.”

Volkswagen fared better but still had only a 3.7 per cent share of the EV market, compared with 11.3 per cent of the overall market, it added.

The German carmakers have deepened their investment in China to try to catch up with local rivals. In June this year, BMW opened its fourth factory in the country, while Audi’s new joint venture with FAW broke ground on a plant in Changchun, a city in the north-east, this year.

China is also one of the largest profit pools for the German car groups, which makes them reluctant to comment publicly on the nation.

Only Carlos Tavares, the Stellantis boss whose brands include Germany’s Opel, has warned about the need to cut reliance on China as a market. His company, which has struggled there, recently pulled out of its Jeep factory in China, and is considering closing its Peugeot and Citroën plants in the country as well, he told an audience at the Paris Motor Show last week.