Chinese EVs in Switzerland | Updated: 12.09.2026

Chinese car brands reached 6.5 percent of all new passenger cars in Switzerland in the first half of 2026. In 2025 the figure was 7'638 vehicles. The cars are cheap and well equipped. They also lose value faster. The residual value after three years sits at 42 to 48 percent of the new price, against 48 to 56 percent for established brands. Two things decide the resale price: a verified battery condition, and an importer who looks after the brand in Switzerland.

Picture a car park with 100 new cars.
Three years ago not one of them carried a Chinese badge. Today six or seven do.

This article answers four questions:

How many Chinese cars are on Swiss roads, and which brands?
Why do many of them not run on electricity alone?
What is such a car worth after three years?
Which two things decide that value?

First, a short glossary

This topic is full of abbreviations. Every one used in the article is listed here.

Term	What it means
BEV	A pure electric car. Charging socket only, no fuel tank.
PHEV	A plug-in hybrid. A petrol engine and an electric motor. It can be charged.
HEV and MHEV	A hybrid without a plug. It recharges itself while braking. You fill it with petrol.
Range extender	An electric car with a small petrol engine on board. The engine only charges the battery and never drives the wheels.
Battery condition (SoH)	How much the battery still stores, in percent. 100 percent means as new.
Trade-in	The garage takes your old car and offsets it against the new one.
Parallel import	You buy the car abroad yourself and bring it in.
LFP and NMC	LFP stands for lithium iron phosphate, NMC for nickel manganese cobalt. Two battery kinds. They last for different lengths of time and behave differently in the cold.

How many Chinese cars are there?

In 2025 Switzerland registered 7'638 new cars from Chinese brands. That is roughly 3 in every 100 new cars.

In the first half of 2026 the share reached 6.5 percent. It roughly doubled in six months. (AGVS: how China is winning over the Swiss cantons)

One limit on that figure: it counts only brands that come from China and carry a Chinese name. Volvo, Polestar and Smart belong to Chinese groups today. They are not counted here, because Switzerland has known them as European brands for decades.

Which brands they are

One brand is far bigger than the rest: MG. MG used to be English. Today it belongs to the Chinese group SAIC. BYD and Leapmotor follow.

Brand	Group	Registrations 2025	Best-selling models
MG Motor	SAIC Motor	4'085	ZS (1'298), HS (1'126), MG3 (684), MG4 (531)
BYD	BYD Auto	1'642	Seal U (894), Sealion 7 (324), Seal (129), Dolphin Surf (128)
Leapmotor	Stellantis and Leapmotor	952	T03 (497), C10 (362), B10 (93)
JAC Motors	JAC Group	348	E30X (265), ES4 (52), e-JS1 (31)
Zeekr	Geely Holding	133	7X (94), X (22), 001 (17)
Skywell (Elaris)	Skyworth Auto	87	BE0 (87)
Xpeng	Xpeng Motors	75	G6 (44), G9 (30), P7 (1)
Seres	Seres Group	65	Seres 5 (57), Seres 3 (8)
Other brands	Omoda, Maxus, BAIC, Dongfeng, Jaecoo and others	191	Dongfeng Box (61), Jaecoo J7 (34), Omoda 5 (31)

This table is a selection, not every brand. In 2025 Switzerland saw new registrations from 20 different Chinese brands in total.

BYD passes Tesla, by 35 cars

By August 2026 BYD had registered 3'367 cars in Switzerland. Tesla had 3'332. The lead is very narrow and can disappear again within a month.

The Tesla trend is the more remarkable figure:

End of 2024: 19.4 percent of the Swiss EV market
Early 2025: 11.5 percent
European manufacturers and new Chinese brands took over that share

(carpixx, swisscharge)

The market around them is shifting

Chinese brands are not entering a static market. The whole Swiss new-car market is changing.

2025 saw 233'774 new passenger car registrations, 2.0 percent fewer than in 2024
Pure electric cars reached 53'250 units, or 22.8 percent
In August 2026 that share hit 30.2 percent in the single month
The largest single group remains hybrids without a plug, at 36.7 percent over the first eight months of 2026

(Federal Statistical Office, autoweg.ch, carpixx, August 2026)

Read these three columns correctly. The first is a full year. The second is eight months combined. The third is a single month.

A single month swings more than a year does. The direction is the same in all three figures.

Who gains, who loses

In August 2026 the year-on-year differences are stark.

Pure combustion engines lose about a third of their volume in one year. Pure electric cars gain almost half.

Not every Chinese car runs on electricity alone

A common misconception: Chinese brands sell only electric cars in Europe. Of the 7'638 cars registered in 2025, fewer than half were pure electric.

3'505 pure electric cars, 45.9 percent
2'132 hybrids without a plug, 27.9 percent
1'370 plug-in hybrids, 17.9 percent
406 pure petrol cars, 5.3 percent
225 cars with a range extender, 3.0 percent

The three biggest brands follow completely different strategies.

MG sells mostly hybrids without a plug, 52.0 percent
BYD splits almost exactly between pure electric and plug-in hybrid
Leapmotor sells almost only pure electric cars, plus range extenders

The reason for the mix is simple. A hybrid without a plug needs no socket at home. That widens the pool of possible buyers immediately.

Where in Switzerland are these cars?

Not evenly spread. Mostly in the cantons around the big cities. Least of all in the mountains.

Between Aargau at 4.8 percent and Appenzell Innerrhoden at 1.2 percent lies a factor of four. In the Principality of Liechtenstein, which is not a Swiss canton, the share was 1.1 percent.

The pattern follows the customer:

Buyers of Chinese brands watch price and equipment closely
More of them live in rented flats than buyers of European premium brands
For them the entry price and the monthly payment matter more than the badge
Such households live in commuter belts more often than in an alpine valley

Fleets are a second route into the market. In 2025 Swiss rental companies registered 304 MG and 100 BYD. Many people drive such a car for the first time without buying one. (AGVS)

All-wheel drive is the quiet Swiss condition

Over the first eight months of 2026 more than every second new car had all-wheel drive, exactly 52.5 percent. All-wheel drive means the engine turns all four wheels. That helps in snow and on steep roads.

This preference decides which Chinese models sell. Twin-motor all-wheel-drive versions do better than single-motor ones. Examples are the BYD Seal U, the BYD Sealion 7 and the MG HS.

Anyone planning to sell the car on later finds more demand with all-wheel drive.

Depreciation, explained simply

Every car loses value over time. That loss is called depreciation.

For petrol and diesel cars the industry knows the curve well:

The first year takes 20 to 30 percent
After three years and 45'000 to 60'000 kilometres, 42 to 50 percent is gone
After five years the car is worth 38 to 45 percent of its new price

(verkaufedeinauto.ch, Autobuster)

The curve falls steeply at first and then flattens out.

Electric cars add a twist. They hold their value well in the first year. After three to four years it gets harder.

The reason is progress: new batteries store more, new cars charge faster, and the list price of current models falls. An older electric car then looks dated, even when it is technically sound. (AutoScout24 guide: EV depreciation)

What is such a car worth after three years?

Three years is the decisive mark. Most leases run that long. After that the cars return to the used market all at once.

This is where the gap between established and new brands shows most clearly.

Model	Type	New price estimated	After 3 years
Model	Type	New price estimated	Residual	In francs
Tesla Model Y Long Range	benchmark, mid-size SUV	about CHF 52'000	52 to 56 percent	about CHF 27'040 to 29'120
Hyundai Ioniq 5 (77.4 kWh)	established competitor	about CHF 54'000	50 to 52 percent	about CHF 27'000 to 28'080
Volkswagen ID.4 Pro	established competitor	about CHF 49'000	48 to 52 percent	about CHF 23'520 to 25'480
Zeekr 001 Long Range	Chinese premium segment	about CHF 63'000	45 to 48 percent	about CHF 28'350 to 30'240
MG MG4 Electric Extended	Chinese compact hatch	about CHF 38'000	44 to 47 percent	about CHF 16'720 to 17'860
BYD Atto 3 Design	Chinese volume SUV	about CHF 42'500	42 to 45 percent	about CHF 17'850 to 19'125
Brand in trouble, example Aiways U5	Chinese start-up without an importer	about CHF 44'000	30 to 35 percent	about CHF 13'200 to 15'400

Two notes on this table. Every new price is the source's estimate, not a list price. Every residual value is a forecast, not a guarantee.

The market for used Chinese electric cars also deteriorated sharply within a year. The average residual value after three years fell to 47.2 percent by early 2024. That is 14 percentage points below the year before.

The rest of the EV market lost about half as much over the same period. (elektroauto-news.net, Ecomento)

Three reasons for the faster loss

One: the new price moves.
When a manufacturer cuts the price of a new model by 15 to 20 percent, the used price has to follow at once. Otherwise the used car costs nearly as much as a new one. New brands cut prices more often, because they are fighting for market share.

Two: the sales history is missing.
Valuation systems such as Eurotax and auto-i-dat work from past sales. For a model that has been on sale for only two years, that data barely exists. The systems then calculate more cautiously, which means lower. That is not a verdict on quality. It is a safety margin.

Three: used-car buyers are careful.
Anyone buying a used electric car wants a workshop and spare parts in five years too. With a known brand that is taken for granted. With a new brand it is an open question.

The battery: two chemistries, two characters

The battery is the most expensive part of an electric car. It accounts for 30 to 45 percent of the manufacturing cost. That is why its condition drives the used price more than anything else.

Two chemistries appear in Switzerland: LFP and NMC.

Property	LFP	NMC
Who fits it	BYD (Blade battery), MG (standard range), Leapmotor	Zeekr, Xpeng, MG (long range), Nio
Charge cycles	3'000 to 5'000	1'000 to 2'000
Energy per kilogram	moderate	high
Safety under heat	high, passes a nail penetration test	moderate
Charging to full daily	yes, 100 percent is fine	better to stop at 80 percent
Behaviour in the cold	weaker, needs heating	better

One charge cycle is one full charge and one full discharge. 3'000 cycles is a great many.

For the residual value that means:

An LFP battery loses capacity more slowly
A used car with an LFP battery therefore holds the better position
The drawback shows in winter: LFP needs more heating, and heating costs range

(BYD Blade Battery)

Warranty and battery certificate

Chinese manufacturers know buyers distrust the battery. So they give long warranties.

BYD also covers:

Motor and power electronics: 8 years or 150'000 kilometres
Whole vehicle: 6 years or 150'000 kilometres
Selected official Swiss deliveries: up to 8 years or 200'000 kilometres

(BYD Switzerland: warranty terms, Carplanet)

A warranty says what happens in the worst case. It does not say how good the battery is today. For that there is a test.

The certificate for the battery

The figure is called battery condition, or SoH, short for State of Health. It says in percent how much the battery still stores.

At 82 percent, a little over eight kilometres remain out of every ten from when the car was new.

Important: the display in the car is not a certificate. It is an estimate made by the onboard computer.

A real test runs through a measuring device. AVILOO is the best known in Switzerland. The device records during a drive:

the voltage of every single cell
the internal resistance
the temperatures in operation

The result is a certificate with a number on it. (electric WOW)

That certificate feeds straight into the Swiss valuation systems autoValue and auto-i-dat. It changes the price:

With a certificate the garage builds in less safety margin, and you get more money
Without one the garage calculates cautiously, because it cannot see the risk

(Auto-i-DAT: the AVILOO interface)

AGVS, TCS and auto-schweiz have also launched a joint campaign, "E-Occasion. Eh besser". It gives garages one common procedure for inspecting a used electric car. (AGVS media releases 2026)

How a garage prices your trade-in

A garage does not pay the retail price for a trade-in. It first deducts what the car will still cost, and its own margin.

Here is the worked example from the source: a three-year-old Chinese SUV.

Step	What happens	Calculation	Running total
1	The garage estimates the achievable retail price	starting value	CHF 19'000
2	The battery test returns 82 percent	× 0.9725	CHF 18'478
3	The garage builds in a 15 percent margin	× 0.85	CHF 15'706
4	Brand risk: known Chinese brand with a Swiss importer	× 0.95	CHF 14'921
5	Reconditioning: cleaning, roadworthiness test, tyres	− CHF 600	CHF 14'321
6	Provision for the used-car warranty	− CHF 500	CHF 13'821
7	Holding cost while the car sits on the forecourt	− CHF 400	about CHF 13'420

The result in two comparisons:

29.4 percent below the estimated retail price
31.6 percent of the original new price of about CHF 42'500

That sounds harsh, but it is not arbitrary. Every deduction pays for something real: a clean, a warranty, interest on tied-up capital, the risk of a long stay on the forecourt.

The factor nobody talks about

Step 4 is the interesting one. Garages apply a factor to a single question: how easily will I find another buyer for this car?

Factor	Which brands	Deduction
1.00	established brand or market leader, for example VW or Tesla	none
0.95	large Chinese brand with a strong Swiss importer: BYD, Zeekr, Leapmotor	5 percent
0.90	mid-tier Chinese brand with few sales points	10 percent
0.75	brand in trouble, or without a Swiss importer	25 percent

On the example car, the distance between 0.95 and 0.75 is about CHF 3'100. That is the price of a brand being properly represented in Switzerland.

When a brand disappears

This is not hypothetical. Aiways entered Switzerland in 2022 through the importer Astara and registered more than 100 cars. Then its parent company in China ran into severe financial difficulty, and European operations were interrupted.

Astara responded:

Maintenance parts come through alternative channels
Six service points still have diagnostic access
Astara could no longer guarantee availability of every spare part

(AGVS: look before you commit)

A car without a secured parts supply is not broken. It is simply hard to sell. In valuation terms the result is called an orphaned value.

Who brings the cars into Switzerland

Brand risk turns on who stands behind the brand. There are two routes.

Route one: a large Swiss automotive group takes on the import.

The Emil Frey Group handles Leapmotor and Zeekr
Garage Galliker (Carplanet) is the official distribution partner for BYD
MG runs through established dealer networks such as Van Mossel and Hedin Automotive

That means workshops nearby, a European parts warehouse, and one clear address for warranty claims. (Carvolution: Chinese EVs in Switzerland)

Route two: the manufacturer sells direct, or a small importer takes over.
Subscription providers such as Carvolution belong here too. This route is built faster. It also depends more heavily on the manufacturer staying stable.

So when you look at a used car from a new brand, one question is especially useful: who is the importer, and are they still there?

Importing yourself: allowed, but costly on resale

You may buy a car in an EU country yourself and import it into Switzerland. The Competition Commission WEKO protects that right. Official importers may not forbid it.

An official Swiss brand workshop must carry out warranty work on a self-imported car too, as long as the European papers (COC) are in order. (Auto Kunz: importing a car into Switzerland)

On resale a deduction follows. Swiss valuation systems calculate 5 to 15 percent less than for an identical car from the official channel. Three reasons sit behind that:

The equipment is sometimes different, for example without a cold-weather pack
The infotainment software is not always set up for Switzerland
Many buyers prefer a car with Swiss papers

So calculate both ends. If you save 8 percent on the purchase and lose 12 percent on the sale, the import was not a deal.

Two ways to hand the risk over entirely

Rent the battery instead of buying it.
NIO sells the car without the battery and rents the battery monthly. The model is called Battery as a Service. The pack stays the manufacturer's property.

On resale the garage therefore inspects only the body, the interior and the mechanicals. The battery question disappears. NIO is barely present in Switzerland, though, with 2 registrations in 2025, because swap stations are missing.

A car on subscription.
Providers such as Carvolution charge a monthly rate and cover everything:

registration and insurance
the motorway vignette
tyre changes and servicing
the whole depreciation

After 12 to 36 months you hand the car back. The residual value is then the provider's problem. That is exactly why Chinese manufacturers like this channel: they push volume into Switzerland, and their customers carry no residual-value risk.

What these figures mean for you

If you are buying a car

A Chinese electric car is cheaper to buy and often better equipped. Even so, do not calculate with the purchase price. Calculate with the loss.

A CHF 42'500 car at 43 percent residual value: loss CHF 24'225
A CHF 49'000 car at 50 percent residual value: loss CHF 24'500

The difference is almost nothing. A low entry price is therefore not automatically the cheaper route.

Three questions are always worth asking:

Who is the importer in Switzerland?
Which battery chemistry is fitted, LFP or NMC?
Does the car have all-wheel drive?

If you run a garage

Ask for an independent battery certificate on every electric car before you name a price. The display in the car is not enough.
Settle with the importer how warranty claims are handled before you take the car in.
Apply the brand factor openly instead of deducting a lump sum at the end. "5 percent, because this brand is harder to sell on" convinces more than a number with no reason attached.
Check the origin through the Swiss vehicle number and the COC papers. A self-imported car needs the 5 to 15 percent deduction.

If you are responsible for leasing or a fleet

Set the three-year residual expectation for new Chinese brands at 42 to 46 percent, not at the 50 to 55 percent of established premium brands.
For cars with an LFP battery you may go slightly higher.
Ask the importer for a buyback agreement.
Watch the importers. If one reduces its service coverage, correct the residual values before the contracts run out.

The conclusion in four sentences

Chinese brands have arrived in Switzerland and are growing fast. Their technology is good, the LFP batteries especially, and the warranties are long. Their value after three years is still lower, because new prices move and the sales history is missing. Anyone with a battery certificate and a stable importer recovers most of that gap.

Sources

Every figure comes from the publicly available sources below. The text names the source at each number.

FAQ

Can I even get a used-car warranty on a Chinese EV?

Yes. Used-car warranties in Switzerland come from independent providers. They depend on age, mileage and condition, not on the brand's country of origin. The premium can be higher when spare parts are hard to source. Ask for the premium on that specific model before you buy, not for the brand in general.

Can I check the battery condition myself, without a garage?

Only roughly. Compare the indicated range at a 100 percent charge with the brochure figure, and take both readings at a similar temperature. That shows a direction, but not a number that holds up in a price negotiation. A reliable number needs a device that records the cell voltages during a drive.

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