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China’s EV Dominance at Home Is Squeezing Out Foreign Carmakers

Chinese brands take nearly two-thirds of home market, leaving others in fight for survival

BEIJING—China cemented its global lead in electric vehicles in 2025 with local brands grabbing further share from foreign carmakers in the world’s biggest car market.

Nearly 13 million full EVs and plug-in hybrids were sold in China last year, accounting for 54% of the market. Because the leading EV makers—apart from Tesla TSLA 1.02%increase; green up pointing triangle—are Chinese companies such as BYD and Geely, the electrification trend helped Chinese brands take nearly two-thirds of the passenger-car market.

Sales of EVs and plug-ins collectively rose 18% in China, marking a contrast with the U.S. and Europe where the transition away from gasoline-powered cars has slowed.

Chinese brands tend to be strong in intelligent-vehicle features and faster when it comes to updating products, said Cui Dongshu, the secretary-general of China Passenger Car Association, which released the 2025 sales data Friday. “Overall, Chinese companies will continue to have a relatively clear advantage” over many foreign brands, he said.

Xiao Feng, an analyst at CLSA, said he expected the share of electric and plug-in cars to rise in coming years to around three-fourths of the Chinese market. That could mostly push foreign carmakers out of the Chinese market by 2030 or later, save for a handful of leading players such as Tesla, Toyota and Volkswagen, he said.

For many other foreign carmakers, “it’s basically impossible for them to catch up in the EV space,” Feng said.

In the U.S., regulatory changes and weak demand are pushing American automakers to retreat from EV plans. General Motors said Thursday it would book a $6 billion charge on its money-losing EV business, following Ford’s announcement in December of $19.5 billion in charges mostly tied to EVs.

Pure electric-vehicle sales in China last year reached 7.9 million cars. That is about six times the estimated U.S. sales of 1.3 million EVs in 2025, which likely ended roughly flat from a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive.

Foreign carmakers have been rushing to restructure their China business while trying to keep a slice of the market. Last year, Volkswagen stopped producing its cars at a plant in Nanjing, and General Motors said it would close plants. This week, GM said it expected to record charges of about $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter tied to its business in China.

Even Tesla, the only foreign brand with a significant foothold in China’s EV market, is struggling. Its sales last year in China dropped nearly 5% to about 626,000 cars, CPCA data showed. Globally, Tesla lost the global electric-vehicle sales crown to China’s BYD last year after the U.S. carmaker reported delivery declines for the second year in a row.

Volkswagen, long the biggest foreign brand in China, hopes to revive its fortunes this year with a slate of designed-in-China models that took years to develop.

Toyota is building a new Lexus EV plant in Shanghai, and GM said all of its new products to be introduced in China this year would have an EV or plug-in hybrid option. Companies such as Ford and Nissan have repositioned the China market as an export hub to deal with excess production capacity.

Both Chinese and foreign players face fierce competition with constant promotions and price cuts. According to a survey by the China Automobile Dealers Association, just 30% of car dealers were profitable in the first half of 2025 and almost three-quarters sold at least some cars below cost.

Beijing has been trying to nudge consumers to spend more by offering purchase subsidies. Last year, the subsidy went up to the equivalent of around $2,900 when buyers unloaded an old car for a new electric or plug-in vehicle. Around 11.5 million vehicles were purchased through the trade-in program in 2025, the government said.

However, some localities ran out of their budget for incentives by December, the passenger-car association said. That caused passenger-car sales to fall about 14% to 2.3 million vehicles in December compared with a year earlier. Some consumers were holding back in hopes of a better deal this year, officials said, although Beijing is trimming certain subsidies in 2026.

Overall, China’s passenger-car market last year grew at its slowest pace in three years, expanding by around 4% to 23.7 million vehicles.

Cocoa set for large-scale buying during index rebalance period

A wave of bullion selling worth more than $10bn is providing the first “big test” of the market in 2026, as last year’s stratospheric run-up in gold and silver prices comes under pressure.

Funds that track commodity indices are rebalancing their holdings and are expected to sell about $6.1bn of silver and $5.6bn of gold during the annual rebalancing window running this year from January 8 to 15, according to calculations from JPMorgan.

“It is the industry’s first big test of how sustainable the December moves are, given we are starting 2026 at such a high base,” said Nicky Shiels, analyst at MKS Pamp.

Benchmark commodity indices such as the Bloomberg Commodity index have to rebalance their weightings once a year to maintain target allocation levels. Funds that track the indices have to buy or sell holdings as a result.

In some years, the market impact is muted but, due to recent big moves in some commodity prices, this year’s rebalancing is expected to have a bigger effect.

This may put pressure on bullion prices but could also provide an opportunity for keen investors to buy the dip — which happened last year, analysts point out. During the 2025 rebalancing window, enforced selling was met with even greater buying, sending prices up.

Gold prices have fallen 0.6 per cent since Tuesday’s close, while silver prices are down more than 4 per cent in the same period.

The yellow metal soared more than 60 per cent in 2025, with silver rising more than 160 per cent.

Gregory Shearer, an analyst at JPMorgan, said silver would see the biggest sales of any commodity during the rebalancing. He estimates net selling of silver equivalent to about 10 per cent of the value of all the open derivatives contracts on trading venue Comex.

Traders are also watching cocoa, which has been re-included in the BCOM. Funds will have to buy a quantity of cocoa equivalent to about 30 per cent of open interest on the Ice exchange in London, according to Kona Haque, head of research at commodity trader ED&F Man.

“This is huge,” she said, adding that the changes helped explain cocoa’s sharp rally in November, when the index announced its inclusion.

Haque said some speculative funds may already have moved ahead of the rebalancing but added that “even then, there should be a decent bullish impact on cocoa prices just on the pure index funds buying”.

“Cocoa people have talked of little else for three months,” said Jonathan Parkman of Marex, adding that there were concerns the rebalancing could prompt short covering of a large speculative position in London.  

Cocoa prices fell nearly 50 per cent in 2025, after a record-breaking rally in 2023 and 2024 driven by supply shortages in West Africa, which grows more than two-thirds of the world’s beans.

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Rokos Capital returned 31% in 2024 following wild swings in equity, bond and commodity markets

Chris Rokos paid himself almost half a billion pounds last year as his macro hedge fund soared in a highly volatile period for markets.

Rokos Capital Management paid £477mn in profits to its highest-paid partner in the year to March 2025, the largest amount since a £509mn payout in 2021, accounts filed to UK Companies House showed.

While the accounts do not disclose the identity of the highest-paid partner, this is widely believed to be Rokos, who is the firm’s founder, majority owner and key risk taker.

Rokos Capital declined to comment.

The hedge fund makes bets on key economic indicators such as inflation and interest rates through asset classes including commodities, equities and bonds.

Chris Rokos is one of the world’s best-known hedge fund traders and a co-founder of macro hedge fund behemoth Brevan Howard.

Rokos Capital was up 21 per cent last year in its lowest-fee share class, according to a person who had seen the numbers, enjoying wild swings in equity, bond and commodity markets that proved the best year for macro hedge funds since 2009.

The fund returned 31 per cent in 2024, which primarily contributed to the profits in this set of accounts, and 8.8 per cent the previous year.

The accounts also showed that revenues more than doubled from £445mn to £1.2bn and that the profit pool available for partners was a record £940mn.

Rokos is the main risk taker at his $22bn hedge fund, supported by analysts and a team of senior investment professionals the firm calls investment officers. This approach is in contrast to most other hedge funds of a similar size, which have multiple key portfolio managers that make trades independently of each other.

After a disastrous 2021 when the fund lost a quarter of its value, performance has radically improved, increasing 51 per cent in 2022, with positive returns every subsequent year.

Other hedge funds, including Caxton and Graham, also enjoyed a strong 2025, as the sector enjoyed winning bets on copper, gold and on a weakening dollar.

Rokos’s old firm Brevan Howard had a mixed year, with its Master fund up an estimated 0.75 per cent and its Alpha Strategies fund up roughly 8 per cent.