Hyundai Motor CEO Jose Munoz warned the US could see a Europe-style surge of Chinese vehicle imports unless Washington maintains tariffs and market-access safeguards, citing Britain's 15% Chinese share as the cautionary case. Chinese brands already hold more than 9% of EU sales despite Brussels' countervailing duties, while US tariffs of about 100% on Chinese-built EVs keep that market effectively closed.
Hyundai Motor CEO Jose Munoz said the US could absorb the same Chinese vehicle flood that has reshaped Europe's car market unless Washington keeps its tariff wall and market-access conditions in place, a warning that lands as the current 100% duty on Chinese-built EVs faces its first serious political test.
"The UK, which in the past was a very profitable, very strong market, has become like China," Munoz said at an event in San Jose, California. "All the top sellers are Chinese because there are no barriers. So I think we could expect similar things to happen in the US, at different levels, unless there are certain conditions."
The numbers behind that comparison are stark. Chinese-branded cars took more than 9% of EU sales in the first half of 2026, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, even after Brussels imposed countervailing duties and minimum pricing commitments on Chinese-built EVs. In Britain, which left the bloc in 2020 and never adopted those measures, Chinese brands accounted for 15% of new car registrations, data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders showed earlier this year. Munoz put the price gap at 30% to 40% versus rival models in markets including Italy, Spain and France.
The US sits at the opposite end of that spectrum. Tariffs of roughly 100% on Chinese-built electric vehicles effectively close the market today, a barrier erected under the prior administration and left intact by President Donald Trump, who told Fox News last week he would welcome Chinese automakers if they built vehicles on American soil. That conditional welcome is the crux: it converts an outright import ban into an investment-for-access bargain, and it is precisely the kind of "certain conditions" Munoz is asking Washington to define before Chinese capacity arrives.
The European experience gives the tariff debate its only real dataset. Brussels concluded Chinese EVs benefited from unfair state subsidies and responded with duties plus minimum pricing, yet Chinese share still climbed past 9% — evidence that tariffs slow the incursion rather than stop it. Britain's 15% share, achieved with no comparable barriers, marks the upper bound of what an unguarded market produces within roughly five years of sustained Chinese export push.
Brussels is now drafting "Made in Europe" rules that would set minimum local-content thresholds for EVs sold in the bloc, forcing Chinese manufacturers to build factories inside the EU rather than ship finished cars. That is the template Munoz wants replicated: tariffs to buy time, local-content rules to convert imports into domestic investment, and market-access conditions to keep the terms on the host country's side.
The cost of getting this wrong is measurable in legacy automaker margins. Hyundai and Volkswagen have both lost share and profitability in Europe to Chinese models priced 30% to 40% below comparable vehicles, and Volkswagen's Seat brand is now described by analysts as being on the brink as Chinese rivals gain ground. Ford CEO Jim Farley told employees in July that the company was preparing for Chinese automakers to enter the US within five to 10 years — a timeline that assumes the tariff wall holds and Chinese firms instead build American plants.
Munoz's own view of the competitive gap is not defensive. Having run Nissan's China operations about a decade ago, he called the pace of the country's automotive advance "unbelievable" on innovation and technology. Hyundai is also behind on its own software: the group pushed the launch of vehicles with its proprietary Level 2++ driver-assistance system to late 2029 from late 2027, and will lean on an Nvidia partnership for Level 2+ and Level 2++ vehicles in 2028. Munoz said the delay reflects a need for more data and safety validation, adding that "if you're humble, you realize your technology is not good, maybe you need to try a partnership." He reiterated that Hyundai intends to internalize batteries and self-driving technology over time, and the group owns US autonomous-vehicle firm Motional.
The policy question now is whether the 100% tariff survives contact with three competing pressures: Chinese retaliation risk against foreign automakers that operate in China, Trump's stated openness to Chinese plants built on US soil, and the domestic price effect of keeping cheap EVs out. Each path carries a different cost. Holding the tariff preserves pricing power for Hyundai, Ford and General Motors in the US but invites reciprocal Chinese measures that would hit their China operations and supply chains. Trading tariffs for local-content requirements would pull Chinese capital into US factories — the outcome Trump described — while capping the share gains Chinese brands can make through imports alone.
For investors, the read-through is that US auto margins are now a function of trade policy as much as product cycles. The last time Washington tightened vehicle tariffs this sharply, in 2024, Chinese EV imports into the US had already collapsed to a rounding error, so the earnings benefit accrued almost entirely to legacy automakers' domestic pricing. Any softening of that wall would reverse the trade within a model year, given the 30% to 40% price gap Munoz cited. Hyundai's own timeline — a 2029 in-house ADAS launch and a 2028 Nvidia-assisted stopgap — leaves the company roughly three product cycles to close a technology gap its CEO calls unbelievable in scale.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
