Chinese Luxury EVs Lure Buyers From Tesla and Legacy Brands

For Eric Huang, a Guangdong-based healthcare entrepreneur who owns a Lamborghini Aventador and a Tesla Model S Plaid, the appeal of Chinese premium electric vehicles (EVs) has grown as their technology has caught up with his expectations.

“I hold electric cars to strict safety standards, so I used to stick to Tesla,” Huang said. But he added that domestic brands had now met his standards.

His next purchase, he said, would be a six-seat premium electric minivan equivalent from a Chinese brand, with a budget of about 1 million yuan (US$148,000). Huang’s choice shows that even while China’s ultra-luxury car market has slowed overall, a growing segment of drivers, with a penchant for domestic brands, are still opening their wallets for top-end EVs.

Buyers, sellers and analysts said the trend increasingly hinged on whether domestic brands could meet standards long associated with foreign marques. Technology, safety and driving experience were now decisive factors.

A report by Beijing-based consultancy Guanyan Tianxia on China’s luxury car market and investment from 2025 to 2032 said Chinese luxury-car buyers were becoming younger and more professionally diverse, with technology and driving experience increasingly outweighing the prestige of traditional luxury names.

Newer premium EV brands were attracting newly minted entrepreneurs, including former owners of established ultra-luxury models like Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Maybach, the report added.

The trend is visible at the top end of China’s EV market.

The Maextro S800, a luxury sedan jointly created by Huawei Technologies and JAC, and priced between 708,000 yuan and a little over 1 million yuan, had surpassed 19,000 deliveries as of June, Yu Chengdong, chairman of consumer business group at Huawei, said in public in late June.

BYD’s Yangwang U9 Xtreme, a limited-edition electric supercar priced at more than 20 million yuan, also shows that domestic brands are pushing into the ultra-luxury tier. The 2025 Hurun China High-Net-Worth Individuals Quality of Life Report found that 35 per cent of wealthy Chinese consumers favoured domestic premium EV brands over traditional imported marques.

Still, foreign legacy marques are not entirely out of the running, with new electric models offering another draw for rich Chinese buyers. 

Ferrari’s first electric model, the Luce, offers a case in point. Since its prototype began its China roadshow in late June, all 88 cars allocated to the mainland market had been reserved by Chinese customers, a Guangzhou-based Ferrari salesman said. He declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak publicly.

The Luce starts at nearly 4 million yuan in China, with deliveries expected by mid-2027. Buyers had placed deposits of up to 1 million yuan, the salesman said.

Its buyers span generations from the 1960s to the 2000s, including many entrepreneurs and executives in artificial intelligence, technology and healthcare, the salesman said. “For many buyers who already own several luxury cars, the price is within reach for a Ferrari,” he said. “It is adding a new option.” At the same time, ultra-luxury consumption has softened markedly in China since 2023, “reflecting a slowdown in the purchasing power of the highest-end consumer group”, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association, wrote on WeChat in July.

Luxury car sales in China’s biggest cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou were facing greater pressure, Cui said.