China introduces export licences for electric cars

Four ministries, including the Ministry of Commerce, announced in a joint statement that the country will introduce export licence management for pure electric passenger cars from 1 January 2026. Officially, this is intended “to promote the healthy development of trade in vehicles with alternative drive systems,” according to the statement.

However, the announcement itself contains only three short provisions. The first states that export licence management will be introduced for passenger cars with vehicle identification numbers that are equipped exclusively with electric motors.

The second point is extremely relevant for the industry, as it specifies how companies can obtain these export licences. Specifically, these application procedures for ‘export qualification’ are to be carried out in accordance with a well-known legal framework; namely, the 2012 ‘Notice on Further Standardisation of the Export Sequence of Automobile and Motorcycle Products’. Furthermore, “Customs inspection of exported pure electric passenger cars is carried out on the basis of the currently valid catalogue of import and export goods to be inspected.”

The third point is simple: “This announcement shall enter into force on 1 January 2026.”

The announcement naturally raises fears that a similar situation could arise for electric cars at the turn of the year, as with the export of rare earth metals. Following an export ban in mid-April in response to the tariff dispute instigated by US President Donald Trump, Beijing allowed exports to resume in June, but only under strict conditions. Since then, however, there have been repeated reports of problems with export licences for rare earths, partly due to extremely long processing times for applications, and partly due to alleged arbitrariness in granting them, for example, because formal errors are suddenly found in the application.

This could also threaten electric cars from January onwards, as the regulatory authorities are set to significantly tighten their control over exports with the new decision. In future, they will be able to decide who is allowed to export their Chinese-built electric cars abroad, and who is not.

This affects not only Chinese car manufacturers, who are increasingly expanding abroad, but also international manufacturers who produce electric cars in China for other markets. The Volkswagen Group, for example, only builds the Cupra Tavascan in China, and Tesla uses its Giga Shanghai as an export hub: the Model Y built there is sold throughout Asia in addition to China, and the Model 3 is even sold in Europe.

Of course, it remains to be seen exactly how the licences will be granted. This is because China can not only decide which manufacturers are allowed to export, but could also differentiate between destination countries, and thus use export licences for electric cars as a political lever. In August alone, 220,000 electric cars were exported from China, according to figures from the CAAM association.

cnevpost.com, mofcom.gov.cn (in Chinese)

This article was first published by Sebastian Schaal for electrive’s German edition