Research from Deutsche Automobil Treuhand, the German market observer better known for setting used-car valuations, has found that the customers most willing to move to a Chinese brand are not the ones the German industry has been watching. They are Hyundai and Kia owners.
The numbers
According to DAT, close to one in two owners of Korean cars in Germany would consider a Chinese model at their next purchase, and around one in five is clearly prepared to make that switch.
| Current brand's origin | Would consider a Chinese brand | Clearly ready to switch |
|---|---|---|
| Korean (Hyundai, Kia) | ~50% | ~20% |
| Japanese | ~33% | ~12% |
| German | ~25% | over 30% rule it out entirely |
The gap between the top and bottom rows is the story. German-brand owners are not merely less enthusiastic — a majority-adjacent share of them, over 30%, reject the idea outright, a response category that barely registers among Korean-brand customers.
Why Korean customers are the soft target
DAT's Martin Weiss attributes it to how the Korean brands built their position in Europe in the first place. Korean marques were long regarded as the value choice, so their buyers are, in his framing, generally more willing to try something new — as long as the price is right.
That is an uncomfortable inheritance. Hyundai and Kia spent two decades converting price-led buyers into repeat customers by improving the product faster than the reputation. The same customer who was willing to take a chance on an unfamiliar Korean badge in 2010 is, by disposition, willing to take a chance on an unfamiliar Chinese one in 2026. The brands are also simply competing for the same person: similar segments, similar equipment-for-money proposition, similar warranty-led reassurance.
Against a growing share
The openness is showing up in registrations. Chinese brands took 3.8% of new car registrations in Germany in the first half of 2026, up from 2.2% across 2025 — still a small share, but a near-doubling in eighteen months, achieved while the tariff regime on China-built EVs made the pricing case harder rather than easier.
Kia's response, as reported, is to lean on product, brand identity and customer experience rather than short-term price incentives — which is the only sustainable answer available, given that discount-matching against Chinese manufacturers is a fight on their terms.
Where this leaves Tesla
Tesla sits awkwardly in this picture. It is neither the incumbent being defended nor the challenger doing the taking, and its German position has weakened sharply — the company registered just 367 cars in Germany in July, as covered in Tesla's July collapse in German registrations, against a market where BEV share reached 29.3%.
The DAT finding suggests the competitive pressure in Germany is not primarily about who builds the best EV. It is about which customer bases have the weakest brand attachment — and on that measure, the volume brands that won their share on value are the most exposed. Tesla's own customer base was built on product enthusiasm rather than price, which historically made it stickier. Whether it stays that way as the Chinese brands move up-market is the open question behind these numbers.