Let us in or you might never catch up. That’s the message the president of Chinese automaker Chery told a group of Australian media recently. He pointed to a growing tech divide between the United States and foreign automakers as motivation, hinting that it could be a significant problem for the US auto industry.
It could hurt not just the cars, but the prices Americans pay, too.
Chery President Says US Needs Competition
Chery International president Zhang Guibing spoke about the divide between the US auto industry, where Chinese vehicles are largely banned, and the rest of the world, which allows them. He pointed to vehicle and price changes in Australia and Europe, compared with the US.
“Five years later, 10 years later, if there is not any good competition inside, so I think maybe outside of America all the cars are completely different, and maybe the US is still a very old car. I don’t know what the situation is,” he said, via CarExpert.
It’s not just the risk of older cars with less technology. Guibing also said, “Yesterday some of the journalists say, ‘Oh now in the US normally the car price is about 60,000 US dollars.’ The car price is very high. I say because there’s no competition, so the customer need to pay more money.”
China has largely taken over Australia’s new vehicle market. In September, 38.9% of new vehicles sold in the country came from China, though not all were from Chinese brand names. Chery had nearly 10% of that share, and company officials have said that Australia can help Chinese automakers learn about the US market. It can do the same through upcoming expansions into Canada.
Do US Automakers Think The Same Thing?
It’s not only Chinese automakers that think this could be a problem. Ford CEO Jim Farley has addressed the issue as well, on multiple occasions. In 2025, Farley compared the rise of China’s auto industry to the rise of Japanese vehicles in the US. “I think it’s exactly the same thing, but it’s on steroids,” he said.
Farley also drove a Xiaomi SU7 in the US for some time, saying that he didn’t want to give it back. He drove it “because they’re the competition. And to beat them, you have to know them.”
His boss, Bill Ford, said in 2023 that “[Chinese brands are] not here but they’ll come here we think, at some point, we need to be ready, and we’re getting ready.”
Earlier this year, Farley echoed his previous observations. “We have to make it against the Chinese players,” he said in an interview. “If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re all going to want to pay attention.”
Of course, the brands are still blocked from the US. A combination of massive tariffs on EV imports and a complete block on connected car technology without a waiver keeps the vehicles off American roads. The same rules led to Polestar withdrawing from the US after it was unable to secure a waiver.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Chinese automakers would very much like to get into the US market, which is the world’s second-largest new vehicle market. US automakers and US regulators don’t want them in, and are going to great lengths to stop it.
But that doesn’t mean that Guibing is wrong. US automakers are already well behind on tech, especially when it comes to electric vehicles. They’re also behind on costs, though much of that is differences in labor costs and government subsidies.
Without large trucks and the protectionist laws that keep competition out of the pickup market, GM, Ford, and Stellantis would be in very rough shape. That’s a situation they need to turn around quickly.
Source: CarExpert