MG to produce cars in Europe
- MG (a legacy of the British MG brand) is one of the brands belonging to the Chinese group SAIC , just like Roewe (a legacy of the British Rover brand) or Maxus (a legacy of the British LDV brand). SAIC also assembles cars under license for Volkswagen and GM, an activity that has been declining for several years. Only the Wuling brand (of which SAIC holds 50.1% of the capital) is emerging thanks to the success of its small electric models (Hongguang Mini EV and Bingo).
- MG is a small carmaker in China (less than 2% of the local market) but it is the leading Chinese carmaker in Europe 30 countries (EU + United Kingdom + Norway + Switzerland), with 241,624 sales in 2024, far ahead of BYD (48,587 sales) and Chery (43,787 sales). This is the reason why MG announced two years ago that it was considering producing cars in Europe, and this becomes even more urgent today, with the new European additional tariffs (in addition to the existing tafiffs) applied to electric cars imported from China and in particular to MG (35.3% in addition to the 10% that existed previously).
- But while BYD is building an assembly plant in Hungary with a production capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year, and must seek new customers (around 100,000 per year) to produce that many cars, MG already has a customer base to produce 150,000 vehicles per year in Europe. It would even need two plants of 150,000 vehicles per year, given the expected growth of the European market and its own growth.
- However, in the first quarter of 2025, sales of electric MGs fell by 50% in Europe and now represent only 14% of the carmaker's sales, compared to 30% in 2024 and 47% in 2023. MG has no time to waste.