Editor's letter: How fake news can shape the car industry

Luton Airport car park fire shows impact false information, especially about electric cars, can have

You see it regularly with EVs: the national grid will blow up, they’ll conk out on you, you won’t be able to drive to see Granny in Scotland at a moment’s notice, they'll catch fire, they’ll collapse car parks under their extra weight…

Public perception of electric cars has become particularly topical this week following the fire in a Luton Airport multi-storey car park. It started when a single car caught fire and the Twitter police had already decided it was an EV, as they seemingly catch fire more. That it proved to be a diesel car was moot - the news agenda had moved on and mud sticks.

Seeing the reaction brought the words of Mike Hawes, SMMT boss into view, who said “we must add carrots to the sticks” to incentivise the switch to EVs. At the moment, a wider interpretation of government messaging around a switch to EVs is that people needn’t bother for another five years, yet the reality, of course, is that with the ZEV mandate car makers need car buyers to buy EVs - and fast.

Hawes says buyers will need encouragement to do so, but at the moment none is forthcoming and the reputational damage EVs are suffering with stories like the Luton fire, and no fightback or counter campaign forthcoming from legislators, that job is getting harder on a daily basis. For private buyers EVs remain a more expensive purchase, and in a cost-of-living crisis they’ll need convincing otherwise. Stories like the Luton saga will not make this any easier.

Another industry trend highlights the importance of identifying disinformation: the rise of Chinese cars on our roads. We’ve had media reports already this year of these cars spying on their British drivers, and even how the Chinese state can take control of them remotely and put the brakes on. Quite why they’d do either of these I don’t know, but articles like this will have been the only exposure many casual observers have had to Chinese cars.

While the industry is united in encouraging the uptake of EVs, it is less so for Chinese cars. Some leaders have called on tariffs to be applied to them to level the playing field with European-made EVs (which don’t enjoy the same favourable labour rates and raw material costs) - and therefore lower prices. Others have said the arrival of the Chinese is no different to that of Japanese or Korean cars on our shores. Ultimately, it will be consumers who dictate the success of Chinese cars, and that price advantage will be compelling.

It was therefore fascinating to spend some time in the company of two Chinese car makers and their latest models at a recent Car of the Year test even in Tannis, Denmark. BYD, the world’s largest electrified car maker that launched with the Atto 3 in the UK this year, and Nio, a true premium alternative to the likes of BMW and Audi, were both present with their latest models.

It’s driving them back-to-back with their European counterparts where you realise just how good Chinese cars have become to drive. In the case of Nio, it has also cracked a final frontier for Chinese cars: good branding and desirability.

Given this list of qualities, it’s hard to see what could stand in the way of the success of Chinese cars now, but one for thing: disinformation. Will mud stick here too?