I Have a Problem With GWM’s Second Attempt at Europe

I have a problem with car brands that treat Europe like a pop-up store, and Great Wall Motor is the example I keep coming back to. The Chinese carmaker, headquartered in Baoding and known as GWM, opened a European headquarters in Munich in 2021 and closed the office in August 2024. It now promises at least ten new models, a push into 13 markets and a European factory by the end of the decade, and it’s doing so just as the EU and China have reached a preliminary deal to limit Chinese hybrid exports. Car buyers in Europe tend to remember how the first attempt ended.

GWM presented its European ambitions at the 2021 Munich motor show with the electric Ora Cat and the plug-in hybrid Wey Coffee 01, positioning Ora as its more affordable electric brand and Wey as its premium SUV marque. Sales peaked at around 6,300 cars in 2023, fell by 25.4% in 2024 and dropped almost 30% in 2025 to about 3,500, according to Reuters reporting carried by Automotive World. A rebrand in late 2023 folded Ora and Wey into one GWM brand and renamed the Ora Cat as the Ora 03, and electrive reported that discounts on it lifted sales only a little.

In August 2024 GWM shut the Munich office, cut around 100 jobs and moved control of European sales back to China, with cars sold through local importers. GWM never left Europe completely, since the cars stayed on sale, but closing the headquarters showed how much the company wanted to be here at that point. It wasn’t the first time either: Van Reviewer notes that the Steed pick-up was sold in Europe more than ten years ago, and NordiskBil reports that a plant in Bulgaria assembled Haval SUVs with a local partner until that partner collapsed in 2017.

What GWM Promised This Time Round

In April, Parker Shi, president of GWM’s international arm, told reporters at the company’s technology centre in Baoding that GWM wants at least ten new models in Europe within two years and 13 markets within 12 months. He said GWM doesn’t want to be “the loser in any market in the world”, which is a fair summary of the ambition.

The 13 figure is easy to misread. Reuters reported that GWM plans to start selling in 13 European markets within 12 months, naming Italy and Spain for June, Poland for July and ten more after that. That makes 13 new markets on top of the nine where GWM already sold cars, including Britain and Germany. Some media summaries blurred the difference between new and total markets and shortened it to 13 countries by the end of 2026, but the actual deadline is spring 2027.

Mu Feng, GWM’s global CEO, set the bigger target of becoming “one of the top 10 mainstream brands in Europe”, NordiskBil reported. GWM is targeting annual European production capacity of 300,000 vehicles by the end of the decade. It has considered several locations, including Spain and Hungary, while more recent reports have also pointed to Romania. No final site has been confirmed. I wrote up the plan in an earlier article. For scale, GWM sold about 316,000 cars outside China in 2023 and only 6,300 of them in Europe, which is around 2%.

How the Rollout Looks So Far

Italy and Spain started on the dates GWM gave, and they’re the first European markets where GWM runs its own national sales company. Poland came later than July and is handled by an importer, Astana Motors, part of a Kazakh group, with cars shipped straight from China. An importer-led setup makes the quality of local service and parts support particularly important, especially for a brand whose European commitment has already been scaled back once.

The cars show how far GWM has changed course. The Ora 5 comes with petrol, hybrid and electric versions, and GWM’s head in Spain told that offering all three is necessary because otherwise the brand wouldn’t succeed. In Poland the launch began with petrol and hybrid, with the electric version promised for later, according to Polish outlets. For a brand that arrived in 2021 with a line-up built around electrified models that’s a big change, and the EV is now the most expensive way into an Ora 5, starting at €34,950 in Spain against €26,950 for the petrol version on km77’s list prices, while GWM’s Spanish site advertises the petrol model from €19,950 with financing and trade-in discounts.

Is the rollout late? I wouldn’t call the 13-market target missed, because the deadline hasn’t passed. Poland slipped, and no further market has been confirmed so far. A continent of dozens of countries with different registration rules, importers and buyer expectations makes some delays normal, and I wouldn’t blame management for every one of them. I’d still expect a company with this history to promise less and hit its dates.

The Hybrid Bet and the Trade Risk Behind It

Moving beyond electric cars also changes GWM’s trade exposure. The extra EU duties introduced in 2024 hit Chinese-made EVs and left hybrids out, and Chinese brands shipped far more of them to Europe, with Chinese customs data showing hybrid exports to the EU roughly tripling to €6.7 billion in the first half of this year.

On 9 October, EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said after talks in Beijing that China had agreed to moderate its exports of hybrids and plug-in hybrids, a deal he said could cut them by more than half over four years. It’s a preliminary understanding, EU leaders still have to approve it, and no mechanism has been published, including how a quota would be shared between brands. The halving is measured against projected exports, so it doesn’t promise to halve today’s shipments, and Bloomberg has reported a cap of 350,000 vehicles a year based on an internal EU document.

GWM announced its plan months before the deal and couldn’t have known the final terms. The risk was public, though: talks between Šefčovič and Chinese officials had run for three months, and Beijing had turned down an EU request to cap Chinese hybrids at 15% of the market only days earlier. GWM does have a hedge: a European plant for 300,000 cars a year by the end of the decade would avoid EU duties on Chinese imports. Several other Chinese brands are already building cars in Europe for the same reason, but no GWM site is confirmed and every Ora 5 sold here is imported from China. Every Chinese brand selling hybrids here faces the same deal, yet a brand that sold about 3,500 cars in Europe in 2025 has less room for error than BYD, which sold nearly 188,000.

Why Buyers Here Care About a Brand’s Track Record

A car is one of the biggest purchases many households make, and many European buyers keep theirs for years, often well beyond the warranty period. In China brands can appear, restructure and disappear within a few years and models are replaced quickly, as I covered in my piece on the Chinese brand shakeout. A buyer here needs the brand to still be around for parts, software updates and servicing once the warranty has run out, and a company that pulled back from Europe once gives them a reason to check.

GWM is a different case from the brands that vanished, because it kept selling cars through importers. My issue is how fast it scaled Europe down when sales disappointed. The company is also recruiting new dealers and focusing on strengthening resale values, an issue Parker Shi told Reuters is important to European buyers. What’s the point of buying a new car if you can’t sell it after four or five years, however good its condition is?

There’s a fair case for GWM, though. Automotive World called the staggered rollout more methodical than the 2021 splash, Italy and Spain have their own subsidiaries, and the warranty runs seven years or 150,000 km, with eight years or 160,000 km on the battery. NordiskBil reported three parts hubs in the Netherlands, Spain and Italy meant to deliver parts within 24 to 48 hours. GWM also isn’t a start-up running out of money, with about 1.32 million vehicles sold worldwide in 2025 and 583,895 in the first half of 2026, up around 2.5%. That size is also the reason I’m cautious. A company this big can survive without Europe, so buyers can’t assume it will stay if the numbers disappoint again.

Don’t get me wrong, GWM deserves a second chance, and more competition is good news for European buyers, provided it comes with competitive prices and reliable support. But trust is built by staying when sales disappoint, maintaining parts availability and supporting customers long after the initial launch.

GWM has the resources to make its second attempt work. What remains to be seen is whether it has the patience to build a lasting business in Europe. Until the new strategy delivers sustained sales, a dependable service network and a credible long-term commitment to the market, the comeback remains a promise that hasn’t been proven yet.

Featured Image: GWM