This isn't an area I'm experienced with, but there seems to be some rather obvious problems and I suspect there are far more than I'm considering in this brief thought exercise.
The price of the illegally imported equivalents will be substantially lower than those legally imported by the manufacturer.
This will have the effect of driving down the FMV of the vehicle in the region.
But if the manufacturer can't afford to match that FMV because of legal trade and transport overheads, the effect will be reduced sales of the vehicle in the region overall, because the illegal channels obviously can't operate on a large enough scale to 100% replace the legal channel from the manufacturer's perspective.
The illegal channel doesn't have to (and won't) operate at legal-replacement scales to impact the region's perception of the vehicle's FMV.
Also consider what effect it may have on potential buyers interested in buying legally, but exposed to news of the imported brand being so overpriced and so desirable that there's a substantial illicit market emerging to fulfill that demand. The honest consumer might be completely turned off by this, thinking their new car may be a theft target because it's this desirable import brand people are committing risky trade crimes just to sell as new in the country.
The situation seems likely to harm the overall sales volume for the region.
