US E-Mobility Imports in 2026: Why SKD and CKD Supply Now Decide Your Landed Cost
For most of the last decade, SKD and CKD were a freight discussion — ship the scooter in pieces, save container space, bolt it together near the customer. In 2026 they have become a tariff discussion. Where the frame is made, and how much assembly happens afterwards, now decides which duty rate an importer pays. Three developments in the last twelve months made that shift permanent.
1. The de minimis door is closed
The USD 800 de minimis exemption was eliminated for all countries from 29 August 2025 (Executive Order 14324), after China and Hong Kong lost it in May 2025. Every inbound shipment now needs formal entry with duty assessed, regardless of value. For a US importer who previously moved small test batches and sample units through the low-value channel, that route no longer exists — and the administrative cost per shipment is now fixed rather than proportional.
2. Section 301 still prices Chinese-origin goods
Electric scooters classified under HS 8711.60.00 carry a Column 1 general duty rate of Free, but that headline number is misleading for Chinese-origin goods. The Section 301 China tariff (HTS 9903.88.02) adds +25% on goods of Chinese origin, on top of the Merchandise Processing Fee (0.3464%) and Harbor Maintenance Fee (0.125%). Anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders sit on top of that again where a scope ruling covers the product — and coverage follows Commerce scope language, not the HS code alone.
The practical consequence: two identical-looking containers can carry materially different duty bills purely because of where the frame was manufactured.
3. A September ruling made country of origin a manufacturing question
On 10 September 2026, US Customs and Border Protection issued ruling NY N364674 on the country of origin of the Segway E2 Plus II electric scooter. CBP applied the substantial transformation test, and found that cutting, stamping, pressing, forming, machining, tapping and welding steel sheet and tubing in Vietnam into a completed scooter frame did substantially transform the material. Subsequent assembly operations in China — fitting the battery pack, motor wheel, controller, harness, steering and fork — did not produce a new article of commerce, because the frame provides the fundamental structure of the finished scooter.
The country of origin was therefore Vietnam, under both scenarios submitted. That is a structural finding, not a paperwork formality: the frame location drives the origin determination.
4. What the industry is actually doing about it
The response is visible in published company disclosures. One of the largest Chinese-origin low-speed vehicle manufacturers reported that its US-bound revenue exposure to Chinese-origin product fell from 76.4% in 2024 to 24.5% in the first four months of 2026. The mechanism was not a new market — it was a new supply chain: frames and components produced in Vietnam, final assembly in a North American facility, with Chinese-origin finished vehicle imports stopped entirely from January 2026. By June 2026 that North American plant was running above 8,000 units per month, and US revenue grew 74.1% year-on-year in the first half of 2026 — the most tariff-exposed six months on record.
This is SKD and CKD executed as tariff engineering, not as logistics optimisation.
5. What a US OEM programme has to be able to answer
If you are building a private-label e-mobility line for the US market, the questions that matter now are manufacturing questions rather than pricing questions:
- Where is the frame made? Per N364674, that is the starting point of the origin analysis.
- What is the assembly sequence after the frame? Documentation of each step supports the origin claim.
- Does the model number match across invoice, specification, test report and certificate? A mismatch is the fastest way to lose a shipment at entry.
- Can the battery be traced to a UN 38.3 test summary? A generic "UN38.3 compliant" statement is weaker than a summary tied to the installed pack.
- Is the scope of any AD/CVD order checked against the real configuration? Scope follows Commerce language, not the tariff heading.
6. Where AURORIDE fits
AURORIDE runs OEM and ODM programmes across electric scooters, e-bikes, electric motorcycles and mobility scooters, with custom branding, colourway, packaging and documentation support. Shipment configuration — fully built units, SKD kits or CKD kits — is quoted per programme and per destination, because the right answer depends on your import structure and the duty treatment you are targeting.
Minimum order quantities, kit contents, plant allocation and lead times are issued per programme on request; we do not publish generic figures, because a figure that is not matched to your destination is a figure that will fail an entry.
7. Getting started
US importers, distributors and private-label brand owners are handled as OEM programmes rather than as retail orders. Tell us the category, the target configuration and the destination, and we will return a programme sheet covering kit level, MOQ, lead time and documentation set.
See the OEM programme for capability, factory and SKD/CKD detail, or contact us through the enquiry form. European dealers are served by a separate track — start with the dealer programme.