The official reason EU added tariffs on Chinese cars, was that Chinese EV manufacturers receive unfair government subsidies. This allowed Chinese cars to be priced lower than European cars.

So it was to protect EU car manufacturers (which are still struggling a bit with EVs).

I don't think it was US "soft-power". However, the EU may impose tariffs on US produced cars as part of the coming trade-war, which may hurt Tesla in future (or maybe not as they also produce Tesla cars in Germany).

It is also worth mentioning, that the imposed tarifs are different for different chinese manufacturers - based on received subsidies. BYD is among the least affected. In the end, nothing stops chinese manufacturers to produce cars in EU - it is what they forced european manufacturers to do in china, so fair game.

When we give Tesla owners 7500 USD to buy a tesla, that’s an “unfair government subsidy”.

You are right, but you miss one critical part. EU did not impose those same tariffs on Tesla, which arguably disrupted the EU EV market even heavier, which is in very similar category, especially now that Elon is basically the president.

> EU did not impose those same tariffs on Tesla

Presumably it didn't have evidence Tesla is receiving unfair help from the Chinese state. It had such evidence for other manufacturers. Also, Tesla has a factory in the EU. Soon, the Chinese manufacturers will have factories too.

Didn’t Tesla survive its first 10 years on selling government credits?

Possibly, the important thing though is whether that is classified as an unfair advantage by the EU. The European tariffs on Chinese EV producers were calculated precisely on the amount of unfair advantage received for each one.

Also just had a look and Tesla has indeed been burdened with a tariff of 7.8% (for vehicles built in China), compared to 17% of BYD, 18% Geely and 20% to 35% for other companies.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

Correction, just had a look and Tesla has indeed been burdened with a tariff of 7.8% (for vehicles built in China).

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...