Mercedes Won't Be Banned In America: Senator

About 20% of Mercedes shares are owned by Chinese investors. To be on the right side of a new law, though, Mercedes may have to get that number down.

2026 Mercedes CLA EV Review

Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs

Nico DeMattia

By: Nico DeMattia

Sep 30, at 5:53pm ET

Add InsideEVs as a preferred source in Google

Comment

Chinese vehicles and automakers have been banned from the U.S. market for some time now, with the introduction of the Connected Vehicle Rule in 2025. It's why the Geely-owned Volvo had to jump through so many hoops to keep selling cars here, and is said to be why Polestar is being kicked out (even if there's some debate about that).

However, U.S. lawmakers want to get even stricter, and with a Senate bill set to ban automakers that have 15% Chinese ownership or more. Despite that, if it passes, one of the lawmakers behind the bill says that Mercedes is safe, even though Chinese investors control about 20% of its shares.

"What we're not going to do, obviously, is ban Mercedes-Benz vehicles in ‌America," said Republican Bernie Moreno (R-MI), according to Reuters. "There's concern that can they get ‌to 15% without debilitating their company?"

Between Tenaciou3 Prospect Investment Limited (9.69%) and BAIC Group (9.98%), Chinese companies own more than that 15% threshold Moreno mentioned. However, since that ownership is passive, and neither company has any involvement in daily operations, product planning, or any sort of development, it seems the U.S. government is ok with it, as long as the company can get it down below the 15% threshold.

2027 Mercedes-Benz GLC 400 4Matic Electric: First Drive Review

Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs

This is a bipartisan bill, too. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) reportedly told Reuters that 99 senators were in favor of the bill, with the only nay being Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). Rand, though, told Reuters that his opposition to the bill is based on it putting Mercedes in jeopardy. If the bit about Mercedes is removed from the bill, then he'll be for it.

What do you think?

View

Comments

Mercedes isn't the only company with more than 15% Chinese ownership, either. Geely owns 17% of Aston Martin, so it will need to restructure if this bill passes, too. Volvo was previously able to work around the existing laws by proving it isn't using Chinese-made software, but Geely is still its parent company.

If this bill becomes law, we'll also likely lose Lotus in the U.S. entirely, given that the brand is also Chinese-owned. Lotus is tiny, though, and doesn't sell very well here, so that wouldn't be a huge blow. However, brands like Mercedes and Aston Martin might have to do some clever restructuring to get their Chinese ownership down. The U.S. market is obviously huge for both brands, so they'll have to find one way out or another.

Here are some related stories

The 2027 Mercedes G 580 EV Gets A NACS Port, More Range, And Faster Charging

Bentley Goes Electric As China's EV Charging War Gets Ridiculous

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Insideevs.com?

Take our 3 minute survey.

- The InsideEVs team

Share this Story

GO TO COMMENTS

(

)

Got a tip for us? Email: tips@insideevs.com

View all comments ( )

Trending

I Took A Rivian R2 On A Camping Trip To The Middle Of The Desert

Solid-State Cells Can Make The U.S. Competitive In Batteries Again: CEO

BYD's Futuristic EV Charger Can Run On Sunshine And Batteries

Google’s Gemini AI Assistant Now Works On Apple CarPlay