Chinese technology companies are paving the way for a world that will be powered by electric motors rather than gas-guzzling engines. It is a decisively 21st-century approach not just to solve its own energy problems, but also to sell batteries and other electric products to everyone else. Canada is its newest buyer of EVs; in a rebuke of Mr. Trump, its prime minister, Mark Carney, lowered tariffs on the cars as part of a new trade deal.
Though Americans have been slow to embrace electric vehicles, Chinese households have learned to love them. In 2025, 54 percent of new cars sold in China were either battery-powered or plug-in hybrids. That is a big reason that the country’s oil consumption is on track to peak in 2027, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency. And Chinese E.V makers are setting records — whether it’s BYD’s sales (besting Tesla by battery-powered vehicles sold for the first time last year) or Xiaomi’s speed (its cars are setting records at major racetracks like Nürburgring in Germany).
Coal Brittain -> Petro Murica -> Electro China.
It’s funny how China said years ago that was the plan and they’re doing it while nobody stopped them because of short term greed.
What would “stopping them” have even looked like?
Competing. No one really even tried.
Europe just did a 180 on the commitment for no ICE cars to be sold from 2035 onwards under pressure of just a handful of big automakers.
And when I say Europe, I actually mean crooked European politicians rather than the public in general.
I mean, even if one puts the aside the whole strategical point of Europe delaying even more commiting to the first big tech revolution of the 21st century so that a handful of large automakers make a little bit more profit, there are actually lives as stake: fumes for diesel cars are estimated to kill more than 10,000 people a year in Europe.
Corruption in politics is both killing people and fucking up our future prosperity.
I personally know people who cheered for the extension of ICE cars to be sold, so it’s not only “crooked politicians”, this is an actual sentiment among people.
Here in the US, the reasons people generally cheer for ICE vehicles boil down to how expensive EVs are here. Legacy manufacturers sell them only in premium trims and dealers tack on excessive profit to help discourage them - they truly are not affordable here.
They don’t seem to understand this is a choice by legacy manufacturers, combined with protectionism bought by those same manufacturers.
I suppose there’s a range concern but I don’t see how that has any validity. As people have more direct experience, that should mostly disappear. While there are never enough chargers, most of the population has high speed charging convenient to them and most homeowners can charge at home.
In my experience, how many people think like that really depends on the country of Europe: my own native Portugal is far more shit when it comes to Environmentalism in general - especially around cars as the country has a very 1980s mindset on them and a car is still seen as symbol of status - whilst for example The Netherlands is almost the the opposite.
Yeah, it means giving up the current cash cow and they’ll only do that when it’s visibly dying. And then the competition has too much of a headed start so it’s already to late.
Tesla is definitely “trying” by number of units produced. Volkswagen is also taking EVs very seriously, at least by current and projected manufacturing numbers.
Lol Volkswagen, the company that actively rigged diesel cars to pass the tests… ? Dieselgate. The German car manufacturers are hopelessly late at EV because they wanted to drain every last penny out of their ICE. The EU setback to extend ICE is after German car manufacturers lobbied… They are killing themselves in the long run, for bit more production in the short run. They saw this all coming decades ago and made wrong choices. Now they’re fucked. The Volkswagen id (EV) sales numbers are so disappointing they had to lower production and make employees stay home.
That’s the one. They’re run by absolute pieces of corporate shit, but they do still seem to recognize the market driven writing on the wall.
The pool in Europe is a lot shallower, especially in the wake of the Russia/Ukraine war. They don’t have the same access to cheap fossil fuels that the US enjoys, so they’re being forced to pivot to EVs entirely due to their regional limitations. They’re also competing internationally in a market with a growing Global South demand. Many of these countries are undergoing electrification far faster than they’re seeing a petrochemical expansion, in no small part thanks to the high installation costs of pipelines and processing plants relative to electric grids and renewables generation.
The entire EU economy has stalled out with the war. But they’ve seen a double-digit upswing in EV sales in Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific Rim.
Facing reality and evaluating technologies through the crucial era of the 2010s with an eye on efficiency and pollutant reduction in the overall energy sector. From there, having the empirical justifications to your nation that focusing on energy storage and further electrification would be more beneficial than fossil fuels.
Rather than doubling down on the existing status quo due to lobbying and sunk cost beliefs from prior consumption rates.
Sure. But that doesn’t change China’s economic growth path. You aren’t changing their behavior
Oh, certainly. However, if enough nations had their heads out of their asses and spoke with engineers rather than oil tycoons, we’d have a more competitive and distributed market for these technologies and a lower future dependence on Chinese imports for said technologies.
Right now, I can see a chokehold forming on that sector, and it’s a completely self-inflicted circumstance for those deadset on oil.
I don’t see a future where at least one of the two largest populations of educated professionals doesn’t lead the way on electric vehicles. And that really only leaves you with China or India.
You might have a broader distribution or more regionalized production. But there’s no world in which a country with the manufacturing capacity plus the enormous population advantage doesn’t come out on top eventually.
I don’t see a chokehold on EVs any more than Taiwan has a chokehold on CPUs.
There’s a building comparative advantage, but the global market is enormous. Plenty of room to catch up.
That’s why China has ten competitive major brands right now
Regarding EVs I agree with you, but I was referring to battery production.
As for Chinese production leading the charge, I also think that’s apt, but I’m referring to the availability of domestic alternatives for things such as military production, which seems to only being kickstarted recently compared to say the 2010s. Currently, it seems like compromises will have to be made in order to minimize reliance on imported batteries from China, which is not necessarily a problem for the consumer market, but may be for governments seeking isolationist policies for their self-sufficiency (EU, US).
There is still plenty of time for things to change of course, but there are plenty of missed opportunities along the way.