European car manufacturer's sales to China seem systematically underdiscussed, considering the amount of ink spilled about the other direction.

German car manufacturers leaned on their government to not protect the German solar industry from China a decade ago in case it affected their sales of ICE cars to China.

I would guess a lot of the pushback against EVs from the industry is because they have one eye on export markets that they gambled to trail Europe on EV adoption but which are about to topple like dominoes to Chinese-manufactured EVs.

Even when NEV sales in China were 50%, the share for Chinese brands was 80% NEV. It's the non-chinese brands that have everything to lose as that transition accelerates (latest numbers was 2/3rds NEV and ICE sales on a rolling 12 month basis are a third of their peak in 2017). The drop in ICE sales is more pronounced than the rise of EV in calendar year 2026, as you might expect when people realise that the old models are legacy from the day they are purchased.