Ten days after ruling it out, Britain's business secretary has reopened the question. Jonathan Reynolds told Politico at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool that tariffs on Chinese electric cars are "under review, to be frank, more closely than lots of other issues", and described the decision as "finely balanced". The remarks were reported on 28 September 2026.
That is a different posture from the one on the record on 18 September, when Reynolds ruled out following the EU with anti-subsidy duties. Nothing has been decided, and "under review" is not a policy. But the minister who owns the file has moved from no to not yet.
What changed in between
The pressure arrived from Brussels. On 25 September the Financial Times reported that the EU had told London to raise its tariffs on Chinese-built cars or join the customs union as the price of being treated as a trusted partner under the bloc's incoming "made in Europe" rules. Britain's automotive supply chain with the EU is worth roughly 80 billion euros a year, which is the leverage.
Reynolds' stated reservations are about the cost of agreeing. He pointed to the risk to Britain's export markets and the possibility of retaliation, and said different parts of the domestic car industry want different things — a split that is easy to see. Manufacturers exporting to the EU want alignment. Anyone hoping for Chinese investment does not: Chery is exploring contract manufacturing at Nissan's Sunderland plant, potentially from 2027.
The gap the tariff decision would close
| Importer | Standard tariff | Anti-subsidy duty | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| EU — Tesla (Shanghai-built Model 3) | 10% | 7.8% | 17.8% |
| EU — BYD | 10% | 17.0% | 27% |
| EU — SAIC/MG | 10% | 35.3% | 45.3% |
| United Kingdom — any maker | 10% | none | 10% |
The EU has applied anti-subsidy duties on China-built electric cars since 2024, set per exporter on top of the standard 10%. Britain never followed and still applies the flat rate alone.
Why a European Tesla buyer should care
Tesla is directly exposed, and not as a bystander. The Model 3 sold in Europe is built in Shanghai and carries the EU's 7.8% anti-subsidy duty — the lowest rate any exporter received, because the Commission judged Tesla a smaller beneficiary of Chinese state support than the domestic brands. Tesla has challenged those duties in the EU courts.
In Britain the same car pays 10% and nothing more. A UK move to align would close a duty gap of nearly eight percentage points on Tesla's highest-volume European model, and there is no version of alignment in which a Shanghai-built Model 3 gets cheaper in Britain.
The Model Y sold in Europe is built at Grünheide and is not affected by this question at all, which is worth keeping straight: the tariff exposure is specific to the cars Tesla ships from China.
What to watch, and what not to read into it
This is a minister declining to repeat a previous no. It is not a consultation, a timetable, or a draft measure, and the UK has spent two years resisting exactly this step while Chinese brands took about 15% of the British market in the first eight months of 2026.
The decision point is not really about cars from China. It is about whether Britain buys into the EU's industrial programme, and what Brussels charges for the ticket. The tariff is the invoice.
Buyers should not expect a price change soon. If one comes, it arrives on Chinese-built cars — Tesla's Model 3 among them — and it arrives as an increase.
Update: 2026-10-05
On 4 October 2026 The Times reported that Jonathan Reynolds is developing a package of tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports — the consultation-or-draft-measure step this article said had not happened. Bloomberg carried the same report, and electrive set out the mechanism: the lever is the EU's forthcoming Industrial Accelerator Act, under which Britain risks being cut out of the "made in Europe" scheme unless it aligns, with Brussels concerned the UK becomes a backdoor for Chinese exports into the bloc. Alignment would mean the EU's 7.8% to 35.3% anti-subsidy range — the bottom of which is the rate on Tesla's Shanghai-built Model 3. Nothing has been imposed, and the government says only that it continues to "engage closely with industry so that our approach reflects the sector's and UK's national interests".