It’s no secret that Chinese cars, specifically electric ones, are leagues ahead of Western automakers in many ways. That’s why Europe and the U.S. have enacted measures to keep prices high or outright ban Chinese cars from being imported or sold, but things are starting to change pretty quickly. As President Trump keeps upping his tariffs on China, many of which are focused directly on the auto industry, Europe is starting to rethink its policies. Reuters reported that Europe may drop its tariffs on Chinese cars, in favor of using fixed minimum prices instead.
This would lead to a massive influx of fantastic new products into the European market, which many domestic automakers aren’t prepared to compete against. Really, this change up might be to specifically screw Tesla, which has already been tanking in Europe. Pretty soon, the U.S. might be one of the only major countries in the world that still doesn’t have any cars from Chinese brands on sale, which led me to today’s question. What Chinese car do you think the U.S. is missing out on the most? What are the coolest, weirdest, best models that you wish were sold here?
My pick: the Zeekr Mix
There are a lot of cars I almost chose as my example, like the MG Cyberster, Li Auto Mega and Yangwang U8, but in the end it was a pretty easy decision. I think one of the coolest new cars of any sort is the Zeekr Mix, a wonderfully egg-shaped minivan from one of Geely’s spinoff brands that has an absolutely incredible interior. Both rear doors are sliding doors, but the Mix’s front passenger door is also a sliding door that opens forwards, which makes for an incredible open space when you’ve got a flat, slim floor and no B-pillar on either side of the car. The Mix’s front seats can swivel 270 degrees to face the rears, and they have extendable leg rests and lots of recline angle. To make it the ultimate tailgate vehicle the center console is motorized, there are deployable tray tables and you can get it with a fridge. It’s really fantastic packaging given how the Mix is a couple inches shorter in length than a BMW X3.
I really do love how the Mix looks on the outside, especially in some of the brighter pastel-y colors, and it seems to have fantastic visibility in addition to space efficiency. It’s only available with a single motor powering the rear wheels, and its output is probably higher than you’re expecting — the Mix has 416 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque, and it’ll hit 60 mph in under 7 seconds. With the smaller battery it’ll do 342 miles on the Chinese cycle while the larger pack has a 436-mile range, though the smaller pack can charge quicker, needing just 10.5 minutes to go from 10-80% versus 15 minutes with the big pack.
Vans like this are the future, I think. But what about you? What Chinese car is the U.S. missing out on? You can pick anything from an affordable peoples’ car to the wildest supercar — just let me know in the comments, and I’ll round up the best answers next week.
