Why don’t Europeans import more of our cars?

Why don’t Europeans import more of our cars?

DDE (famous initials) says “Even the EU won’t take our cars…..”. That got me thinking because I am certain that DDE doesn’t mean that the EU bans our cars much like we do Chinese EVs (we impose a 100% tariff and ban their hardware and software). Governments can assess tariffs on cars but private companies import them. So the question arises whether the EU places punitive tariffs on US cars to keep them out of the country. The answer is no. “The European Union charges a 10% tariff on cars imported from the United States. But 85% of cars assembled in the United States and sold in Europe are exempted because they contain European parts. The United States charges a 27.5% tariff on cars imported from Europe.” This US tariff may go down to 15% provided the Europeans agree to lower some tariffs on selected US goods. So we charge a much higher tariff on European cars than the Europeans charge on ours. Is that what Trump meant when he said that we were being cheated by the EU?

Thus, the BMWs assembled in South Carolina and shipped to Europe are not subject to tariffs by the EU. Last year 225,000 BMWs were exported to Europe. Volkswagen and Mercedes also export vehicles from the US to Europe.

Perhaps what DDE means is that cars and trucks other than those made for export are banned from the EU. But that is not the case either since the EU doesn’t restrict the import although some individual countries might for specific vehicles. For example, the cybertruck is banned from import into many European countries. In the UK it is banned due to its weight and size (my F-250 is also too big), its sharp edges, the rigidity of the truck in case of a crash and other reasons. For these reasons and others the cybertruck is viewed as a safety hazard in much of Europe and will be so until its design is changed. Also the cybertruck is so heavy that many European countries require a truck license to drive it if it is imported.

What about other vehicles? One of the perhaps dated guiding principles of automaking was that the factories be close to the market to reflect tastes and reduce transportation costs. Tesla makes cars for the European market in Berlin, Germany rather than importing them from Fremont, California. Once Ford and GM had factories in Europe. GM made Opels and Vauxhalls and owned Saab. It lost $20 billion and sold its European operations to Peugeot-Citroen. Ford has factories in Germany, Romania, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Belgium, and Spain. Ford once owned Jaguar, Aston Martin and Land Rover. But Ford is losing money. It is closing its plants in Spain and laying off workers at other plants. The company has announced that it is moving from passenger vehicles toward concentrating on EVs and commercial vehicles. Yet in the UK, a Ford is the best selling car. It is the Puma. Built in the UK for the UK. But Ford has stopped making the Fiesta, Mondeo and its MPVs.

So what do DDE and Trump mean by saying “Europeans don’t take our cars” when clearly they do – with exceptions. First, our tastes in vehicles and economic circumstances differ. European vehicles more economical than ours. Our cars are on average larger and heavier with poorer gas milage. European gas prices are much higher. We pay about the same per gallon as they do per liter and there are 3.8 liters to a gallon. Their streets are much more narrow than ours meaning smaller vehicles as well. When I was living in Germany, I remember the biggest car I saw was a Camaro winding its way through the narrow streets of Konstanz. Just like the “Smart” car did not appeal to most Americans, neither would an Expedition SUV to most Europeans. The top sellers in Europe are the Dacia Sandero and the Renault Clio, both rather small cars. The best selling vehicle in America is the Ford F-150. The Europeans even consider the Toyota Camry a “big” sedan. It sold 345,310 vehicles in 2024 in the US but only 6,137 in Europe. And this was with no restrictions on its import.

Our markets are different as are our tastes. That’s why our cars and trucks are not imported into Europe. It is not the EU government that is restricting the cars but the private importers because they won’t be able to sell them. Mind you, I am not saying that governments don’t play a role in reducing importing American cars and trucks. European safety and fuel economy regulations are much stricter than those in the US with US fuel regulations getting ever laxer under Trump meaning bigger American vehicles and fewer EVs.

But the bottom line is that the Europeans do not buy our cars but not because they prohibited from doing so. They have smaller wallets (along with the smaller streets), higher gas prices and different tastes.
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