CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico—Just 5 miles from the U.S. border, a bustling commercial strip here offers the buzzy Chinese car brands currently blocked from the American market.
A Geely dealership features the all-electric EX2, a sleek compact that starts at only around $20,000. A bulky hybrid pickup truck sits next to a charger outside a BYD dealership. Great Wall Motor boasts some beefy gas-powered sport-utility vehicles, one advertised with the slogan “Be More Tank.”
Luis Hernandez, a Geely salesman, said he has poached many longtime Ford and Chevrolet owners attracted to the affordable sticker prices and whiz-bang Chinese technology. He recently sold two Geely Emgrand sedans, which start at around $17,000, to a Mexican family for their two daughters to commute to college in El Paso, where the sleekest Chinese cars are now attracting attention.
“If they were allowed to be sold in the United States,” Hernandez boasted of the Chinese models, “they would destroy the American car market.”
U.S. automotive executives don’t entirely disagree. Without a clear plan to deal with Chinese competitors, some of them said in interviews, the arrival of affordable, high-tech Chinese cars could upend a U.S. industry that contributes $1.3 trillion to the economy each year.
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