21:53 02-12-2025

How China's ICE car exports are remaking emerging markets

China is sending gasoline-powered cars around the world in volumes the home market no longer absorbs, and that shift is reshaping competition more than the EV wave Western debates tend to spotlight. According to Chinese consultancy Automobility, since 2020, 76% of the country’s vehicle exports have been internal-combustion models, and annual shipments have climbed from roughly 1 million to a potential 6.5 million-plus by 2025. Reuters notes that even in the gasoline-only segment—excluding EVs and PHEVs—last year’s exports were enough to make China the world’s top auto exporter by volume.

The logic is straightforward: subsidies and policies that supercharged the domestic EV market—and the ensuing price war—left traditional Chinese groups with vast idle combustion capacity. Automobility puts the surplus at up to 20 million vehicles a year. To keep plants busy, companies are pushing ICE models into markets where charging networks remain thin: Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia. As Reuters describes, in Poland dozens of Chinese brands have announced launches since 2023, often leading with gasoline versions.

Export champions include state-owned heavyweights SAIC, BAIC, Dongfeng, and Changan, as well as private names like Chery, Geely, and Great Wall. The twist is that many of them are squaring off overseas against the very Western brands that are their joint-venture partners in China: SAIC, for example, is expanding exports largely without GM, while Dongfeng sells pickups and SUVs abroad even as it runs joint projects with Nissan and Honda.

For legacy automakers, that presents a fresh risk: in developing markets, Chinese ICE models are often cheaper yet richer in software and features. According to a JATO analyst, the real fight for market share is playing out in emerging economies rather than in the United States or the European Union. On the showroom floor, that mix of price and tech tends to speak for itself.