BERLIN, May 12 Reuters The market share of electric cars shipped to Germany from China more than tripled in the first quarter, the German statistics office said on Friday, a worrying sign for German carmakers struggling to keep up with their fastmoving Chinese peers. From January to March, 28.2 of passenger cars with electric motors imported into Germany came from China, compared with 7.8 in the same quarter the previous year, the office said.

Volkswagen and other carmakers are struggling to keep up as China39;s auto market, the world39;s largest, accelerates towards an electric future leaving established global brands stuck in the slow lane.

Many products for everyday life, but also goods for the energy transition, now come to a large extent from China, the office said. For example, 86 of portable computers imported into Germany, 67.8 of smartphones and telephones, and 39.2 of lithiumion batteries came from China in the quarter.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz39;s government is increasingly wary of China as a strategic rival as well as its largest trading partner since 2016, and has considered a series of steps to reduce dependencies as it reassesses bilateral ties.

In the case of rare earths essential for the construction of electric cars and wind turbines Germany and the European Union as a whole are more than 90 dependent on supplies from China, a December study by DIW research institute found.

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Reporting by Rene Wagner Writing by Miranda…