The electric vehicles (EV) of Chinese makers set a target for winning over European drivers and large corporate customers with more affordable cars that come with top safety and high-tech features.
In the early months, several Chinese EVs have received five-star European New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) ratings.
“All Chinese EV makers want to achieve Euro NCAP five-star ratings in order to be more competitive in the European market,” Brian Gu, the president of Chinese EV maker Xpeng said.
Xpeng has spent the last three years building stores and service centers in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway before some initial sales and an official launch of its electric P7 sedan and G9 sports utility vehicle (SUV) in the four countries next year.
The five-star Euro NCAP ratings are seen as a key to crushing residual European concerns and, more importantly for sales in the potentially huge corporate car fleet market for Chinese EV makers. European concerns about the quality of Chinese automakers following crash test failures in 2006 and 2007 indicated that cars from China were unsafe.
