Valentin, a young taxi driver in rural southern France; Lindsay, a doctor in her 30s working in Alpes-Maritimes; and Romaric, an interior architect in Reims (northeastern France). In short promotional videos, these self-employed professionals display, with apparent satisfaction, their recent car purchase: an Xpeng, either the G6 or G9 model. In other words, a 100% electric, 100% Chinese car.
These testimonies, highlighted by the new automaker founded in Guangzhou in 2014 and introduced to the French market in May 2024, remain exceptions in the French professional automotive world. In the first half of 2025, about a dozen Chinese brands were available in France, but they accounted for only 2.3% of all new passenger car registrations between January and June.
Their presence in companies was even more limited: Chinese brands made up just 1.1% of vehicles sold to businesses in the first half of the year. During this period, the Renault Clio alone, with 13,300 fleet sales, registered three and a half times more vehicles to corporate fleets than all its China-based competitors combined.
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