The outcome of that investigation was predetermined.

The French government began pushing for tariffs. The Germans opposed the idea, but France turned out to have more political support on this issue. The EU needs a technical justification for tariffs, so the Commission launched an investigation. That investigation came to the conclusion it needed to in order to justify the policy that had already been decided on at the political level.

The conclusions of the report are petty ridiculous. China has a much more competitive EV market than the EU does, and Chinese manufacturers are much lower cost as a consequence. When Chinese companies export EVs to Europe, they sell them at a very substantial markup, which is the exact opposite of dumping.

The types of subsidies the EU is complaining about are the exact same types of subsidies that EU countries themselves (and US states) give. They're things like government funding for charging infrastructure and sales-tax exemptions.

What damaged the EU cae makers was that they had a very good market in China, and Chinese EV makers could step up and make cars that were more desirable/affordable for their domestic market. The loss of profits in China is what hurt everyone, because that country alone is a very large market.

The car industry that closed factories all over Europe and sold expensive cars made in poor countries?

"Too big to fail" is not a product statement.

This is a disingenuous framing based on the mere fact that China continues to do business with Russia. China also continues to do business with Europe and Ukraine, so one can just as easily argue that China is helping Europe destroy Russia. Have you seen the number of Chinese-made commercial-grade drones used by Ukraine?

China is "destroying European carmakers" as much as your local supermarket A "destroying" supermarket B. It's called competition. As someone else said, Chinese subsidies have already declined, way way before the EU tarriffs went into effect, and the EU and US can also decide to subsidize their carmakers.

China was very late to the EV battery game and LFP was more or less their only choice, which was deemed inferior for EVs due to its low energy density, but whose core patents were all about to expire -- ie, great for exports. They are effectively patent-free now.

In short, the Chinese gov't essentially forced all key EV battery industry leaders to waive their IPR to access China's local market; then effectively banned them and forced their customers, EV OEMs, to switch to local Chinese battery suppliers, who were still learning to make batteries under MIIT's Regulation on Power Standard since 2015/2016 (announced/enforced). That's essentially how China came to corner the battery supply-chain and scale up/commoditize their production at the expensive of everyone else past 10 years.

1. Power Play: How China-Owned Volvo Avoids Beijing’s Battery Rules Car maker is allowed to use high-end foreign technology, while rivals are squeezed into buying local, Trefor Moss, May 17, 2018, the Wall Street Journal

  ... China requires auto makers to use batteries from one of its approved suppliers if they want to be cleared to mass-produce electric cars and plug-in hybrids and to qualify for subsidies. These suppliers are all Chinese, so such global leaders as South Korea’s LG Chem Ltd and Japan’s Panasonic Corp. are excluded.

  ... Foreign batteries aren’t officially banned in China, but auto executives say that since 2016 they have been warned by government officials that they must use Chinese batteries in their China-built cars, or face repercussions.  That has forced them to spend millions of dollars to redesign cars to work with inferior Chinese batteries, they say.

  ... “We want to comply, and we have to comply,” said one executive with a foreign car maker. “There’s no other option.”

3. The Key to Electric Cars Is Batteries. One Chinese Firm Dominates the Industry. Beijing built the world’s largest EV market, then pressured foreign car makers to use its batteries, Trefor Moss, Nov. 3, 2019, WSJ

  ... China is by far the biggest EV market, and to boost its standing in the fast-growing industry, China began pressuring foreign auto makers to use locally-made batteries

  ... Auto makers weren’t pleased, but they fell in line. During a visit to CATL headquarters in 2017, three Daimler AG executives displayed their irritation shortly after the meeting started, recalled Jiang Lingfeng, then a CATL project manager who prepared a technical briefing for the visitors. One Daimler executive cut off his briefing, said Mr. Jiang. “We’re not interested,” the executive said, according to Mr. Jiang. “The only reason we’re here is that we have no choice, so let’s just talk about the price.”

  ... Still, auto makers bridled at CATL’s dominance, according to Mr. Tsao, the former supply-chain manager there. CATL’s batteries also cost 25% more than those of leading rivals because the company was still learning to mass-produce cost-effectively, he said. “The price is high, and the service is slow,” he said, summing up CATL’s proposition to auto maker clients.

  ... “What the government did was a good thing for China,” said Mr. Jiang, the former CATL project manager. “Without its restrictions, I don’t think CATL would ever have been successful.”

All that to support cheap energy and overcapacity.