CHINA: SAIC Sell A Million MG’s To Europe, Chery Plans Diesel Hybrid Ute and BYD Budget People Carrier | 23 Feb 2026

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Every day I bring you headlines, insights, and analysis from the heart of China's booming EVE industry

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SAIC's MG brand has crossed one million total sales to Europeans.

It claims the milestone is the first Chinese automaker to do so.

MG was founded in the UK.

Then, in 2005, Nanjing Automotive Corporation acquired the MG brand.

SAIC absorbed MG when it acquired Nanjing two years later in 2007.

The badge now sells Chinese volume on European streets.

MG sold more than 300,000 vehicles across Europe, including the UK, up 30% year on year in 2005.

That kept MG as the top selling Chinese brand in Europe and the UK for the 11th straight year.

It also put MG 16th overall in the European UK sales table last year,

and it made it the only Chinese brand inside the top 20.

When we look at Europe and the UK, we typically talk about the European Union.

The United Kingdom, since Brexit, we're no longer part of EU and the EFTA countries as well.

We bring in the Nordics normally as well.

The UK has been doing most of the work, though, for that record.

It was MG's single largest market last year.

More than 85,000 MG's sold here.

Total UK sales over 370,000 in the modern era, including 100,000 pure bevs.

MG also posted a headline that will sting in California at least in the first half of last year.

MG now outsells Tesla in Europe.

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association, a CEA, confirming that stat.

MG sold 150,000 units in Europe in the first half of last year, up almost 20%.

Now, last month, let's get up to date.

In January, MG delivered close to 26,000 vehicles in Europe.

Up 15% year on year and crossing the 1 million sales mark.

Right, let's move on.

And cherry plans to launch what it builds as the world's first diesel plug-in hybrid, Ute,

selling it to Australians by the end of this year.

The project sells in China already as the Rely P3X.

It'll be the Rely R08 in Latin America, the Middle East and other markets, where it is on sale.

And the signal plans to build Rely into a standalone pickup brand.

The Rely lineup includes the R8, R8 Pro and R8 EV with other concept trucks, the P2X and P3X concept trucks already previewed.

So this is known at the moment internally as the KP31.

Cherry says the KP31 is a large dual cab Ute for Australians, 5.6 metres long with a very boxy shape

and circular headlights.

Heavy plastic cladding all around gives it that proper chunky.

Look, it does look like a chunky big boy.

Very raised as well.

I think I couldn't find the ground clearance on this, but it looks raised up a long way.

And it looks like it's meant to be very muscular and things like that.

But yeah, a large Ute.

Not the biggest bed, but Australians use Utes differently to maybe how Americans use full-size pickups

and bed length, not quite as important.

This is a double cab, of course.

So it's 221 inches long and large illuminated cherry badge on the front proudly showing off that it is a cherry and a Rely, R-E-L-Y.

In case you're wondering how I was pronouncing or spelling Rely.

Very cheap gladiator, I would say, under the skin.

So yeah, diesel plug-in hybrid not common, is it?

2.5-litre diesel engine with an electric drivetrain.

Full specs undisclosed at the moment.

The platform integrates a traditional four-wheel drive system

and a battery pack mounted in the rear section of the frame under the bed.

The KP31 will target staples of the Ute world.

One tonne payload, three and a half tonne towing.

Brakes towing.

That puts it into the same fight as other Chinese challengers.

Like the recently updated BYD Shark 6 in its first iteration fell slightly short of those benchmarks.

Still very capable, by the way.

But now it will be able to hold its head up against the combustion cars they fight with

and great wall motors, Canon Alpha High 4.

Not many diesel plug-in hybrids spring to mind.

Certainly here in Great Britain,

I've seen some Mercedes diesel plug-in hybrids,

E-class, C-class, and then the GLC and GLE versions.

Audi did a diesel plug-in hybrid Q7.

I think it was the Q7.

Volvo did a V60 back in the day.

But yeah, a diesel plug-in hybrid not particularly common.

I wonder how Australians will take to buying Chinese diesel plug-in hybrid by the end of the year.

It's a really exciting market for the Chinese car makers to go into.

BYD has released official images of the Ling Hui M9,

or maybe it's the Ling Hui.

Ling Hui M9 is a mid to large seven-seat plug-in hybrid MPV.

So it's got those traditional MPV dimensions.

I mean, there's only so much you can do with a seven-seat MPV.

It's tall with a flat roof and a completely flat back.

And so this is part of their new E and M series.

So the Ling Hui E5, E7, E9, and M9.

That was going to be a plug-in hybrid for ride sharing.

This is also going to come in Pure Beth mode as well.

Under the skin, 1.5-litre engine with permanent magnet synchronous motor.

Using a BYD blade battery.

Not confirming the capacity though.

The similar vehicle, the Shia DMI, is a 20.4 kilowatt-hour blade battery.

62 miles or 100 km of CLTC China cycle range on that one.

This is going to be a cheap vehicle though.

Like I say, for ride hailing and taxi services and things like that.

But even what we call a cheap EV or a cheap people carrier to my eyes

still looks like has premium elements in terms of the styling,

the silver accents and not a huge amount of interior shots.

But what they do show, which is the side door open.

Captain's chairs in the second row as well,

always looks quite luxurious.

So, NEO's next in the news.

And hey, another day, another record for NEO.

A new single-day record for battery swapping.

This was 175,976 battery swaps.

That was the fifth day of the Lunar New Year holidays.

When China's roads fill and charging queues form,

so this was done on Sunday, the 21st of February,

at Peak Load.

No, this was Saturday.

I'm sorry, Saturday 21st.

At Peak Load, the network completed one swap every 0.5 seconds.

NEO aims to open its battery and station standards to other manufacturers

turning a proprietary network into a shared multi-brand utility.

And that would of course lift the profitability of each station.

Now, let's talk about budget EVs last month in January.

So for a long time, China did good business in small, cheap EVs.

Like the Wuling Huanguang Mini EV.

That did really well for a long time.

Then the story over the last few years has been China moving into more premium segments

and eating up the market share that the Germans typically had

with those premium badges and premium EVs and even the mid-size segments as well.

China's been focusing on with big sellers.

Last month, it was a bit of a reverting to type.

China's EV sales crowned cheaper, more stripped back models.

If you look at 2025 data, we see a return of small cars that are maybe sub-100,000 RMB.

That'll be less than $14,000 US dollars.

The likes of Geely and Wuling have cars from them.

And that's allowed them to leapfrog the likes of Tesla and BYD.

Geely's Xingwan led the all-battery EV models on the Chinese mainland last year.

It sold 52,500 units in 2024.

It sold 460,000 last year.

These figures come from data from the state-owned China Automotive Technology and Research Center.

Geely prices the Xingwan from $9,400 US dollars.

Wuling's Hongwang Mini EV, which has for a long time topped the charts, is now second.

That sells for under 100,000 yuan.

The pattern matters because it signals where demand is pulling at the moment.

Value over premium, value over badge and basic kit over trim.

It also fits the current line from Beijing, which is the government repeatedly urging car makers

to stop blunt discounting of its more premium vehicles.

A mid-deflationary pressure pushing the car makers towards alternatives like upgrading the cars,

new variants at lower price points and subsidized purchase plans,

interest rate deals, things like that, rather than just chopping the headline price off of cars.

In some cases in recent history, selling cars at a discount just to build scale in China's automotive market,

which Beijing took a very dim view of.

And so a lot of that practice has largely gone, but it's still a brutal market.

We'll come back after the break and talk a little bit about Chinese EV insurers

and Chinese brands growing their share overseas.

Stick around back in a moment.

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Welcome back to the podcast.

Chinese car makers lifted overseas sales in Europe by 80% in January to over 70,000 vehicles.

They did it in a market that contracted at the time.

Their combined market share rose to 7.4% from 4% January 2025.

The record monthly share was December last year.

December 25, it was a 9.5 share of Chinese vehicles in Europe.

MG, which I've mentioned, is top of the Chinese brands, the MG ZS, Small SUV.

And also the MG 3 is on sale too.

MG was almost caught by BYD.

BYD was about 1,000 units behind MG.

And they've got some vehicles to sell here, like a mid-size SUV, which is called the CLU Overseas.

Also, that goes up against cars like the Skoda Kodiak, a very well-selling hybrid.

BYD have small EVs like the Dolphin Surf, as it's sold here.

Which is up against things like Renault's E5 and Citroen's EC3.

And then Cherry followed behind BYD, sales surging to 17,000.

Cherry now feels for brands.

J-Coup, Omoda, the Cherry brand itself, and J-Tour.

J-Coup rose, Omoda climbed, and the newly launched Cherry is just off the mark.

Further back, Geely, that grew 42% as well.

Lincoln Code, contributing to about 700 additional sales.

And Geely will start selling its own namesake brand in Europe as well.

Now, Chinese insurers are next in the news.

They lost $825 million, equivalent, under writing EV policies last year,

according to the China Association of Actuaries.

That came despite more than about $200 billion yuan in EV premiums last year, a jump on 2024.

The average annual EV premium, in case you want to compare and contrast with what you pay,

with what the Chinese pay, the average annual EV premium in China is $650 equivalent, according to Aon.

Aon also puts EV premiums 20% higher than combustion cars.

Even so, EV owners seem to file claims more often.

Last October, the Association of Insurers said that EV owners are 2.2 times more likely to make a claim.

I wonder why.

Repair bills for battery-powered vehicles run higher as well.

China's ride-hailing fleet are mostly EVs.

Adding another drag, they say.

Ride-hailing cars tend to crash more often.

They tend to do more miles.

They spend most of their time actually moving and working.

Insurers cannot simply charge what they like in China.

The NFRA sets the pricing framework for EV insurance.

Insurers can move individual premiums up or down,

but only within a defined band based on a risk profile.

The industry now works on separate pricing frameworks for ride-hailing,

perhaps an admission that one size does not fit all.

And finally, the US Supreme Court three days ago

delivered a majority ruling, six to three,

that the tariffs imposed by the United States president

under an Emergency Economic Powers Act exceeded presidential authority.

The court drew a line.

Only Congress holds tariff setting powers.

The ruling strikes down tariffs applied under IEPA,

the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,

and it now opens the door to refund claims.

Since these tariffs were introduced in 2025,

this is less about politics.

This is more about a long running paperwork exercise now.

Someone has to decide who gets the money back,

how much, and when.

BYD did not waste any time.

They have filed a suit in the US Court of International Trade,

challenging the tariff measures which were introduced in April of 2025.

BYD related entities want refunds and a declaration

that the tariffs were unlawful.

The Supreme Court decision adds more legal weight to the case.

It does not by itself clear a path to the United States

for the Chinese car makers.

BYD does sell.

Electric buses and commercial vehicles in the US.

But it has not launched passenger cars

and it has not confirmed a timeline.

The broader tariff wall still stands.

Tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports still in place

and the court did not address them.

Chinese legal analysts say those duties

continue to apply in full independent

of this separate emergency IEPA tariffs.

Next will come no doubt more litigation.

Courts need to sort out whether BYD and others can recover

some of those paid duties

and win more relief from import barriers.

And that's today's podcast.

Have a good and see you tomorrow.

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CHINA: SAIC Sell A Million MG’s To Europe, Chery Plans Diesel Hybrid Ute and BYD Budget People Carrier | 23 Feb 2026

About this episode

MG

SAIC

Chinese automaker

BEV

plug-in hybrid

Rely P3X

Rely R08

concept trucks

dual cab Ute

double cab

Jeep Gladiator

electric drivetrain

four-wheel drive system

payload

towing capacity

Dodge Challenger

Byd Shark 6

Mercedes-Benz GLE

Mercedes-Benz GLC

Mercedes-Benz Eclass

Mercedes-Benz Cclass

Audi Q7

Volvo V60

Wuling Hongguang Mini EV

EVs

Geely Xingwan

Wuling Hongguang Mini EV

EV premium

US Court of International Trade

tariffs

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