From freezers to browsers: What these five Chinese car brands did before they made cars
Updated:
One in 10 cars sold in Britain last month were made in China, latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders show.
In the past week, three car makers hailing from China have announced they will launch in Britain.
But this new period of automotive brings a lot to debate - price wars, the threat of cheap EVs, and security issues for starters.
And another gripe people have with new Chinese car makers is many aren't actually car makers. Instead, many are tech brands masquerading as car companies.
As opposed to legacy European brands like Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, these new Chinese companies don't have automotive histories going back over a hundred years. Instead many of them have technology-based roots or in some cases, even more unusual beginnings.
We've dug into the pasts of four of China's automotive powerhouses to get to know them a bit better. And we've looked into a fifth that bucks the technology trend, standing proud as a car maker that has always and only made cars.
Geely Auto was the first Chinese car brand to sell one million vehicles. But it started life as a refrigerator parts manufacturer
How it started:
Geely’s origins have a colder start, as the automotive powerhouse began life as a refrigerator parts manufacturer.
In 1986, Eric Li founded Huangyan Refrigerator Parts in Taizhou City in the Zhejiang Province of China.
For eight years it made refrigerators, freezers and construction and decorative materials. Then in 1994 Huangyan Huatian Motorcycles Factory was established – the predecessor of Geely and the Geely trademark was registered.
It wasn’t until 1997 that Geely entered the automotive industry. It wanted to produce affordable cars for those on tight budgets, and in doing so it became China's first privately-owned auto manufacturer.
In 2024, Geely achieved record-breaking sales of almost 2.2 million vehicles – a 34% year-on-year increase
How it’s going:
In 2002, Geely entered into China's top 10 automakers, and by 2010 was in a position to acquire Volvo.
Taking 100 per cent of the shares of Volvo Car Corporation from Ford, Geely started its Western expansion and quickly snapped up 51 per cent of Lotus in 2017, and 9.69 per cent of Daimler AG (Mercedes-Benz owner) in 2018.
Thanks to these acquisitions Geely Auto was the first Chinese car brand to sell one million vehicles.
In 2024, Geely achieved record-breaking sales of almost 2.2 million vehicles – a 34 per cent year-on-year increase.
Sales outside China increased 21 per cent year-on-year, to almost 1.22 million units. And electrified sales grew over 52 per cent to almost 45 per cent of aggregate sales.
Geely will debut under its own name in Britain with the arrival of its EX5 SUV towards the end of the year.
BYD has fast become China's most famous car exporter and EV brand. It started making lithium-ion rechargeable batteries for mobile phones before switching to EV batteries and then EVs
How it started:
BYD was founded in November 1994 by Wang Chuanfu, a Chinese chemist and entrepreneur.
He wanted to compete against expensive Japanese battery manufacturers and become a world leader in energy generation, energy storage and rechargeable batteries.
In 1996, BYD began manufacturing lithium-ion batteries for modern day smartphones, just as there was a boom in the devices.
Throughout the early 2000s, BYD supplied batteries to Motorola and Nokia - at the time two of the biggest players in the mobile phone industry.
In 2003, BYD was in the position to sidestep into the automotive industry, acquiring a small car maker called Xi'an Qinchuan Automobile.
It's first combustion car, the F3, arrived in 2005, before releasing the plug-in hybrid F3DM in 2008. Warren Buffet invested 10 per cent ($230million) and BYD became famous.
BYD really took off when it introduced its lithium-ion Phosphate Blade battery in 2020 which increased space utilisation by 50 per cent and delivered a range boost also of up to 50 per cent.
BYD is now the largest electric car maker in the world after dethroning Tesla in 2023
How it’s going:
BYD began exporting outside China in 2010. By 2024, it reached an annual overseas sales figure of 417,204 units – a 71.86 per cent increase on 2023.
By 2030, BYD aims to sell half its cars outside its native land.
In 2024, BYD sold 4,272,145 vehicles globally, marking a substantial increase from 427,302 in 2020.
As of March 2025, BYD's sold 11.6 million EVs to date. Tesla on the other hand – who used to be the biggest EV maker in the world - has sold 7.5 million EVs.
China's Geely, the owner of Volvo, Polestar and Lotus, is the third biggest EV manufacturer in the world, and yet has just 1.4 million EVs comparatively.
BYD is now the largest electric car maker in the world after dethroning Tesla in 2023.
How it started:
Xpeng is core of the tech-to-car Chinese movement, as it was founded in 2014 as a smart driving technology company.
It wanted to redefine the driving experience and use artificial intelligence to craft its EVs.
Why did it have this angle? Because it was created by He Xiaopeng, a self-made tech trailblazer who built UCWeb – China’s most popular mobile browser. He sold it in 2014 to Alibaba for $4.3billion before pivoting to automotive after being inspired by Tesla and sustainable transport.
In 2017, Xpeng revealed its first model, the Xpeng G3, an electric SUV, with deliveries commencing in 2018. Then in 2020 it launched the P7, which made headlines for its AI driving mode.
This year Xpeng officially launched in the UK with the G6 all-electric coupe SUV which costs from £39,990.
XPeng says ‘it is a technology company at heart’ and wants to use technology to transform the future of mobility – from road EVs to ones that fly. In this way it is fully embracing its technology origins, not trying to shy away or downplay them.
XPeng was founded in 2014 as a tech-to -car company that wants to transform the future of mobility
It says it's a 'technology company at heart' and has even proposed flying cars
How it’s going:
In the first half of 2025 Xpeng delivered 197,189 vehicles, already topping its total deliveries for last year which stood at 190,068 vehicles.
It's a year-on-year increase of 279.01 percent and marks the eight consecutive month since November 2024 that Xpeng’s deliveries have exceeded 30,000 units.
As of June XPeng has entered over 40 countries and regions globally and has set itself a goal that half of future sales coming from overseas markets.
Its cumulative sales to date tally up to 752,957.
Xiaomi is the third largest smartphone maker in the world, even though it only entered the market in 2010. Now it's trying its hand at EVs, unveiling the U7 in 2023
How it started:
The latest left field entrant to the car market is smartphone maker Xiaomi.
Xiaomi was founded in April 2010 by Chinese entrepreneur Lei Jun, former president of the software company Kingsoft, along with seven partners.
It's got a smartphone market share of 13.8%
By 2024, it was the third largest smartphone vendor globally, with a market share of 13.8 per cent.
Headquartered in Beijing Xiaomi Auto is a subsidiary of electronics company Xiaomi and officially entered the EV market in March 2021 after announcing a $10billion investment in the sector.
A combination of US sanctions on their smartphone business and the booming Chinese EV market gave Xiaomi an opportunity to diversify and use its strengths in hardware, software and user experience to expand into this rapidly growing sector.
Promising a ‘revolutionary EV experience’ the first model, the Xiaomi SU7 was unveiled in 2023.
The U7 has had 200,000 pre-orders in just 3 minutes. These unheard of levels are matched by the U7 Ultra becoming the fastest EV around the Nurburgring
How it's going:
In June the U7 went on sale and within three minutes Xiaomi said it received 200,000 pre-orders.
The orders required a non-refundable deposit of 5,000 yuan (£509) for the vehicles, which are priced from 253,500 yuan to 329,900 yuan.
This is unprecedented new vehicle demand in China, where monthly sales of 10,000 units for a single model are a success in its highly competitive EV market.
It outdoes annual deliveries of other electric car makers, and could overtake Tesla's sales in China of 480,000 units.
The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra is already the fastest electric production car to have lapped the Nurburgring in just 7m 04.95s.
Chery is the one car maker on this list that set out making cars. It was founded in 1996 and has been producing cars since 1999
How it started:
Chery is in rare company in the Chinese automotive world because it is, and always has been, a car manufacturer. This will make naysayers rejoice.
Chery founded in 1996 by a group of government officials who established the automotive company to reduced poverty in Anhui and drive wider economic development.
Engine-manufacturing equipment was bought from Ford in the UK, and tooling from VW's Seat. Factory construction commenced in early 1997, with the first vehicles rolling off the production line towards the end of 1999.
Mass production came a year later.
Omoda is one of Chery's UK sub-brands and has already launched three cars in a year
How it's going:
It became the first passenger car company in China to export complete vehicles and as of 2024 it sold more cars last year than BMW: Chery shifted a whopping 2.6million units in 2024 - a 38.4 per cent increase on 2023.
It's been China's top exporter of passenger vehicles for 21 consecutive years. By production it was China's third-largest automotive maker in 2024.
Chery has launched two sub-brands in the UK in the last year, Omoda and Jaecoo, which have already gained two per cent market share.
This is Money exclusively revealed this week that Chery is coming to the UK this summer under its own brand, with two SUVs going on sale soon. The first will be revealed at Goodwood Festival of Speed.
This İs Money
