Volvo Shifts EV Production to Belgium Amid Tariff Concerns

TapTechNews June 10th news, according to a report by The Times of the UK on June 9th, an anonymous source inside Volvo said that the company is transferring the production of its EX30 and EX90 SUV electric models to Belgium to deal with the possibility of the EU imposing tariffs on Chinese imported electric vehicles.

It is learned that the Volvo EX30 is produced at the Geely factory in Zhangjiakou, and the EX90 is produced at Volvo's Daqing factory. For the US market, the EX90 is produced at Volvo's Charleston plant in South Carolina, so its sales in the US will not have to deal with any tariff issues, and the fate of the Chinese-made EX30 is less clear.

Before this, the US raised the tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles from 27% to 100%, and the European Commission is also conducting an anti-subsidy investigation on Chinese-made electric vehicles. However, the European automotive industry has given different opinions on imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen have all issued warnings about tariffs.

TapTechNews noticed that Tesla founder Elon Musk previously said via video link, Tesla and I did not ask for these tariffs. In fact, when this news was announced, I was surprised. Anything that restricts free trade or distorts the market is not a good thing. Musk believes that Tesla is competing quite well in the Chinese market without tariffs and preferential support, so he is in favor of not imposing tariffs.

Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath was puzzled by the decision of the Biden administration to raise the tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles and hoped that at least fair trade could be achieved even if free trade could not be realized.