A mild rally in the shares of automakers after the European Union voted to impose tariffs on electric vehicles from China does little to alleviate a bleak year for the sector’s investors.

The European Union will press ahead with hefty tariffs on China-made electric vehicles, the EU executive said on Friday, even after the bloc's largest economy Germany rejected them, exposing a rift over its biggest trade row with Beijing in a decade.

European Union countries have voted to impose duties on imports of electric vehicles from China, as talks continue between Brussels and Beijing to end the standoff before an end-of-October deadline