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The story
Europe’s auto industry is under siege from the rise of Chinese manufacturers. Growing increasingly alarmed, the EU has begun moving to strengthen tariffs on Chinese-made EVs and revisit hybrid vehicle regulations — even if that means bending the free-trade and climate-action principles it has long championed. The Mainichi Shimbun reports that this shift risks putting Japanese companies at a disadvantage too. On 5ch, threads buzzed with concern over Japan being ‘frozen out,’ alongside debate comparing the technological strength and market strategies of automakers from different countries.
Europe’s auto industry has fallen into crisis amid the surge of Chinese manufacturers and other pressures.
Growing increasingly alarmed, the European Union (EU) has begun leaning toward policies that bend the free-trade promotion and climate-action principles it has upheld.
That increasingly desperate stance is starting to cast a shadow over Japanese companies as well.
Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here
What people said
Actually, Japan imports more than you'd think.
You see BYDs around quite a bit now.
Most Teslas exported to Japan are made in China.
Some Volvo models are made in China too.
We're not even invited to the meetings anymore.
The Indian government asked developed-country automakers to build factories there, but Suzuki was the only one that answered the call.
The other automakers shot themselves in the foot by misjudging India's economic growth.
If you can't even build an 800cc kei-car knockoff, you've got no shot in India.
The EU's fall from grace is so bad it's not even funny anymore (´・ω・｀)
Same goes for Japan, honestly — nobody wants to work hard anymore.
We should just clearly accept that the Western world is done for.
Europe's put up to 43% tariffs on Chinese EVs and recently decided to regulate hybrids too.
Japan's subsidies also vary wildly by country, plus there's a weak yen and cheap-fuel dumping going on.
It's unavoidable, really.
Subsidies and import restrictions/tariffs are completely different things.
Give up and bow down to Toyota already — especially BMW, whose designs have turned to garbage.
Toyota has zero F1 wins, Ferrari has over 250, and Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW are all pretty famous in their own right.
Japan's specialty is the 'tortoise car' (slow and steady, like the fable).
And lately even strong-hybrid fuel economy has been overtaken by Chinese cars.
Both Japan and Europe need to take a hard look at themselves.
Are you idiots just slapping on regulations and calling it a day?
Chinese cars aren't selling at all in Japan.
Even in China people avoid Chinese-made cars.
They catch fire, they melt, and the manufacturers won't honor the warranty.
It just shows how poor the world has gotten.
And honestly, they're a different category from Japanese cars to begin with, so don't lump them together.
Toyota Group's Hino was running a diesel-cheating scheme until recently.
They only finished paying off the fines this year, and Daimler bailed them out of going under.
Well, they had to cheat or they'd have gone under by then — selling at rock-bottom bargain prices.
Well, they had to cheat or they'd have gone under — fake-clean, rock-bottom bargain-basement stuff.
Even if they do import them, few people want to buy a car that might not even last 5 years.
Cars need maintenance.
If it were durable, even I'd buy one.
You're supposed to trade in a car every 3 to 5 years anyway, right?
That was true back in the Showa era. These days there's no minor or full model change every 3 or 5 years anymore, so nobody really feels like trading in. By the way, don't tell me you're paying off an Alphard (a premium Toyota minivan) on a residual-value loan?
That only works because a 3-year-old car is still perfectly usable and sells fine as a used car.
Switzerland: Japan crushed its watch industry.
America: Japan copied TVs and cameras.
The West: washing machines, fluorescent lights, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, shipbuilding, cars, trucks, buses — Japan copied all of it and made a fortune while the West took massive losses.
Then Japan went along with China's calls to respect copyright, failed to copy smartphones and drones and cash in on them, and declined. Japan is declining because its aging executives keep exploiting everyone.
Well, that's also a fact, to be fair.
Oh really?
Takaichi actually went straight to the visiting German chancellor and personally lobbied him to 'buy Japanese cars without restrictions,' you know (picking nose).
Honestly, I feel like the West has been underrated way too much lately. If the yuan rises and Western currencies weaken, once Chinese goods lose their price edge, there won't be that much real difference in what each side actually produces.
If China wants to call itself part of a 'G2,' it should promptly move the yuan to a fully free-floating exchange rate.
The 'Japanese car myth' is already over.
In China, 1 in 3 cars used to be Japanese, but Japanese brands' market share has now dropped to about 10%.
This trend of turning away from Japanese cars is starting to spread worldwide too.
Maybe they just want different things from a car?
It's said there are nearly 20 companies on the scale of a Japanese 'Toyota' — you could call the industry refined at this point.
If the launch of solid-state-battery cars, expected to hit the market around 2027-2028, gets delayed,
Toyota could collapse in a flash precisely because it's such a giant.
As for Honda… rest in peace.
No matter how hard China chases cost-performance, not everyone in the world can actually buy Chinese products. You need yuan to buy them, and that's surprisingly hard to come by.
So there will always end up being another supply chain on the opposite side from China. Toyota will be highly valued in that one.
Japan and China's approach to R&D is fundamentally different.
The Japanese way is to build up from basic research and accomplish big things as a team.
There's no way the Chinese way — copying things and then infighting over who gets sole credit — can beat that.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The EU has long championed free trade and decarbonization as flagship policies, but to counter the price competitiveness of Chinese-made EVs, it has begun moving toward protectionist measures that contradict those very principles — including additional tariffs of up to 43% and tighter regulations on hybrid vehicles. The US, too, effectively imposes 100% tariffs on Chinese cars, making this part of a broader trend of major economies simultaneously pivoting toward defensive trade policy. In the thread, posters pointed out that Japanese automakers could get swept up in the same tariff and regulatory net, and that Suzuki’s early move to build factories gave it a head start in the Indian market — complicating any simple ‘China vs. Japan/US/Europe’ framing. At the same time, some posts veered into remarks disparaging physical traits or nationality, a reminder that trade-policy discussions can easily slide into nationalistic, emotionally charged rhetoric.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “China-made cars surge, EU bends its principles — Japan too ‘may suffer disadvantage’.”
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