Owners of this Chinese SUV face uncertainty after UK importer ceases trading
Car changing is a big deal
The UK importer of Skywell cars, Innovation Automotive, has shut up shop, leaving dealers and owners with more questions than answers. Could other new brands suffer the same fate?
The UK importer for Chinese brand Skywell has ceased trading. Innovation Automotive, which imported the BE11 SUV as well as DFSK electric vans, cited a lack of required investment from its parent company, necessary to be competitive in the UK’s cutthroat car market.
While Skywell itself has not gone bust, the result for owners in the UK is functionally the same – leaving them with uncertainty regarding warranty cover, parts availability and future resale value.
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Remaining Skywell stock has all been sold to a dealer, V12 Sports and Classic, which is currently selling them from just £13,995 – making the BE11 electric SUV, temporarily at least, one of the cheapest ‘new’ cars you can buy in the UK. It’s a huge drop from the near £40,000 Skywell was asking when the vehicle first launched.
It’s fair to say we were left less than impressed with the Skywell BE11 when we drove it in 2025 – calling it ‘the worst car you can buy today’.
A spokesperson for Innovation Automotive said its closure was “in no way a reflection upon Skywell”. However, the brand’s registration figures illustrate just how difficult it had been to gain a foothold in an increasingly crowded UK market.
So far in 2026, Skywell registrations total just 90 cars – 64 of which happened in June, the same month that V12 Sports and Classic acquired Innovation Automotive’s remaining new-car stock – so it’s likely those don’t equate to customer sales. That’s still fewer than every other Chinese car manufacturer – newcomers Changan, Aion and Geely, all of which entered the market after Skywell, sold more. Even regularly low-volume brands such as DS, KGM or Lotus performed better.
It might not be entirely over for Skywell owners. Innovation Automotive confirmed that the Chinese brand is actively searching for a new UK distributor. It’s also hoped that a new organisation will take command of Innovation’s large UK parts inventory as well as warranty administration for existing Skywell owners – the BE11 was sold with a seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty.
But it raises the question – how much room is there in the UK market for all of these new brands? It’s fair to say that massive companies such as Geely, BYD or Chery (parent brand of Omoda and Jaecoo) will probably be safe for many years to come – they’re already posting sales results that exceed many mainstream companies.
But is there space for everyone else? Aion is one newcomer that’s taking a softly-softly approach in the UK market – it’s being brought in by a distributor, not targeting vast sales and has a limited dealer network thus far.
Great Wall Motors (GWM) and Xpeng are both distributed by International Motors, the same firm that’s been selling Subaru cars for decades. It’s a big firm with history and skill – yet both brands together have sold fewer than 1,000 cars so far in 2026, while Jaecoo has shifted more than 34,000.
After all, Skywell’s fate isn’t unknown – just look at what happened to American car maker Fisker. After a glamorous beginning with a shiny new SUV promising amazing range, tech and premium quality for a reasonable price, software issues and bad reviews led to the company bleeding capital and shutting up shop.
Since then, the Fisker Owners Association has stepped in to organise repairs, source parts and develop its own app and software-update options. There are also commercial third-party support services available. But none of that is the same as having the original manufacturer behind the car, with an established dealer network, parts supply chain and warranty operation.
That doesn’t mean a low-volume newcomer is automatically doomed. Building a brand takes time, and some manufacturers may be content to grow gradually rather than chase the huge registration totals posted by Jaecoo, BYD or MG. But the Skywell situation shows that getting cars into the country is only the easy bit. A credible long-term operation is much harder to put together – and success in the market is impossible to predict.
Starting with good product, though, is an essential, and could be where Skywell sunk – its BE11 SUV had almost no redeeming features, while successful models such as the Jaecoo 7 or BYD Seal are much closer to their European equivalents.
More Chinese brands will continue to arrive in the UK, and plenty will succeed. The biggest names already have the scale, dealer backing and sales momentum to look well established, while experienced distributors such as International Motors give smaller brands a more solid foundation. But there probably is not room for every new badge hoping to sell an unfamiliar electric SUV to British buyers.
Skywell is not proof that Chinese brands are about to disappear from the UK – far from it – but it is a reminder that buyers should look beyond the price, range and equipment list, and ask who will still be there to supply parts and honour the warranty in five or seven years’ time.
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