China carmaker Nio wants to buy Audi plant in Belgium to avoid high EU tariffs

Chinese carmaker Nio has emerged as a potential buyer of Audi's plant in Belgium as it hopes to avoid costly new EU import duties on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs).
The respective proposal will be sent to Audi's parent company, Volkswagen Group, by September 23, reliable sources say, writes Belgian newspaper De Tijd.
Audi has already confirmed it will end production at the aforementioned plant, which had opened in 1949, after the last example of the Q8 E-tron electric SUV rolls off the assembly line in 2025.
The European Commission had earlier confirmed that high tariffs would be imposed on Chinese-made battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
The move, announced in early June, was the result of an in-depth investigation that found that subsidies are being poured into the entire supply chain of Chinese-made BEVs by both domestic and foreign companies. According to EU officials, Chinese government money has been found everywhere, from the extraction of raw materials needed to make batteries to the services that ship finished products to European shores.
The scale of the subsidies enables Chinese manufacturers to offer their EVs at considerably lower prices than those assembled in the bloc, where energy and labor costs are much higher. The price gap has led to a surge in Chinese BEV imports, from 3.9% of the market in 2020 to 25% by the end of 2023, according to the European Commission.
This wave of cheap imports poses a threat of economic damage to EU competitors, and this could lead to heavy losses and risk the loss of up to 12 million jobs, the executive has warned.