Buy European

What?

You asked if people make cars in Europe.

The answer is obviously yes.

Now your new question is...

Why buy any car made anywhere from any company?

... wha?

Do you want a top to bottom run down on how cars work and what to look for, what kinds of design components are good vs bad, what kinds of manufacturers are known for quality or reliability, what maintenance looks like for each car?

I would prefer to buy a Chinese car over an American... because they are both cheaper and more reliable, or well they would be cheaper here in the US if we hadn't have had massive protectionist tariffs on Chinese car imports for over a decade.

I just want a basic affordable car I can take care of for a decade or two.

America doesn't make those any more.

The entire auto industry here has been utterly fucked since the 07/08/09 crash and subsequent bailouts with 0 strings attached, the entire US auto industry's strategy after that can be summarized as: make everything a luxury car and go for profit margin over volume, and also cut every corner possible.

We should have either let them all fail or just nationalized them, instead of just throwing money at them and rewarding their inability to plan for a market downturn.

... and sure yes Geely is the majority owner of Volvo... do you want to attempt to devise a specific rubric of exactly how we determine precisely what % of money spent on any particular car goes into the pockets of people of which particular nationality?

You asked if Europe makes cars.

Yes. Europeans manufacture cars, in Europe.

A whole other way we could look at this is how many people of which particular nationality and in what actual physical location are at some point involved in the actual production process of that car you buy.

Have fun mapping out either one of those I guess?

... People need to keep in mind where their money goes to... what are you typing on, can you tell me every single nationality involved in producing your computer or smart phone?

Where does the gas in your car actually come from?

Your clothes?

Come on buddy, the world economy has been massively interdependent and globalized for like 3 or 4 decades now.

People need to keep in mind who they are sending their money to/supporting when they buy things manufactured elsewhere.

Buying European is a great aim, but it is reaches it's boundaries if the product one is searching for has to fulfil specific objectives, here e.g. a specific type of car, probably not a SUV, with a maximum price cap one can afford. European brands currently have fallen behind in producing small cars, and if tge models exist, selling them for a reasonable price.

Because European EVs either suck quality wise (Stellantis) or they are anti-consumer like locking basic features behind subscriptions (BMW/Merc) or the company just sucks (VW)

The only good manufacturers are maybe Porsche and Volvo/Polestar but they are expensive hence why people go for Korean EVs or cheaper Chinese cars. Maybe Renault’s EVs are a good contender, but they still need to proof themselves in the EV space.

Because people are allowed to choose?

Just because most choose European cars doesn't mean they aren't allowed to buy cars from other markets.

And the premise of the post is that Europeans would rather buy Chinese cars than US ones. The choice is thus between Chinese and US. European cars have nothing to do with it.