New Chinese brands are having a significant impact on the UK new car market, proving that buyers are not afraid of living with a less familiar brand – and one of them now sells more than Mini and Tesla.
We looked at sales data from the 10 new Chinese car brands – BYD, Changan, Chery, GWM, Jaecoo, KGM, Leapmotor, Omoda, Skywell and XPeng – that have all launched in the UK in the last three years and found these new names have taken a 4.8% share of the market in the first 10 months of 2025.
Compared with the same period last year they've experienced a ninefold increase, with the accumulated sales from these brands growing from 9,167 to 82,661, according to data from car industry body the SMMT. That's a stark rate of growth given that six of them only started selling cars in the UK this year – these same brands accounted for only 0.55% market share in 2024.
Star of the Chinese show is the Range Rover Velar lookalike, the Jaecoo 7. This single model – available as a petrol or plug-in hybrid – has sold over 20,000 so far this year, nearly as many as Honda has sold from its entire range. The Jaecoo 5, which resembles the Range Rover Evoque, has also just gone on sale.
Talking of Honda, its market share has dipped by 25% so far in 2025, but it’s not the worst performer. Citroen is down 35%, Fiat down 33% and Suzuki has dropped over 27%. The worst of the lot? Well, inevitably Jaguar’s market share has flatlined as the world waits for the all-electric reinvention of this British brand to kick off next year.
Other premium brands like Audi and Mercedes have seen their market share drop in 2025, and that’s before any newcomers really target these established premium brands – but they will.
Along with Jaecoo, BYD is another big success story with its range of New Energy Vehicles (electric cars and plug-in hybrids to you and me) selling 39,103 up to the end of October, outselling MINI and Tesla so far this year. Also chipping away at Tesla’s sales figures is MG – its two new models the IM5 and IM6 are directly targeted at Tesla’s Model 3.
BYD’s current range of seven models is set to grow even further in the coming months with the Chinese giant promising all-electric and plug-in hybrid versions of every single model bar its smallest EV, the Dolphin Surf.
BYD also has BMW, Audi and Mercedes in its sights with its upmarket Denza brand heading to the UK next year. It won’t stop there, either – its Yangwang sub-brand is already claiming speed records around the world and aims to take on Ferrari in the supercar sector.
Its aggressive assault is paying off, with British car buyers helping to make the UK BYD's largest market in Europe. Over the last 12 months it’s experienced a near 550% increase, achieving a market share of over 2% in its own right.
Hoping to make similar strides is Geely – owner of Volvo, Lotus, Polestar and London taxi maker LEVC – which has just released the first of many new models to come to the UK under the Geely brand. And its first model, the EX5, is pretty good (thanks to a little help from Lotus on the handling front). The EX5 will be followed in 2026 by two plug-in hybrids and the compact EX2 EV, which was the second bestselling electric car worldwide in August 2025.
That's not all that Geely's up to, either. Its premium brand, Zeekr, is also coming to the UK in 2027 with the Zeekr 7X - a rival to the Tesla Model Y.
Another Chinese car giant, GWM, already sells Ora-badged cars here, but Tank – unsurprisingly making big 4x4s – could join it. Changan has just launched the first of its Deepal models and Chery, owner of Omoda and Jaecoo, and has recently launched a range of Chery cars.
European carmakers have decided that if you can't beat them you may as well join them with Stellantis’ tie-up with Leapmotor meaning that more Chinese models – including the B10 and T03 – are now being sold through your local Vauxhall, Citroen or Fiat dealer.
New brand Seres has been threatening to come to the UK for a while, while Skywell has a toe already in the market and Aion is ramping up ready to launch its Aion V and Aion UT models next year.
Perhaps the most exciting though is Nio, which is part-owned by McLaren owner CYVN. Nio could be set to provide tech to McLaren, while its cars have been sold in continental Europe for a while.
Nio offers clever battery swap tech (see the image above) and an onboard digital assistant called Nomi that feeds your comments directly back to the factory – although I’m not sure battery swapping will be something UK buyers will go for. But it’s Nio’s small but still premium Firefly model that will arrive in the UK first, in mid 2026. It’s a cute Honda e and Renault 5-style package that will be followed by with mid-range Onvo cars later in the year.
It’s not just new models coming from China – Cadillac is planning a return to Europe and the UK, while Indian giants Tata and Mahindra are also eyeing the UK as a place to launch their branded cars.
So, could these new brands sound the death knell for some existing ones? Will we see a Kodak moment in the car industry – a big name vanishing because it couldn’t cut through fast enough as the technology shifted?
Put simply, yes. The UK's new market isn’t expected to grow much beyond the two million mark in the coming years and even more names will be fighting for a slice of the pie.
UK buyers have traditionally been open to new brands, too. In the 1970s we took to the big Japanese carmakers we now know well, while in the 1990s the Korean manufacturers brought a new level of value (and long warranties) that UK buyers fell in love with. Many of the new Chinese brands are following the same playbook.
