Sky's Ed Conway explains how the rest of the world was caught napping in the electric vehicle race, which means our car prices and auto industry jobs are within China's grip.

Summary

China has become the world’s largest car exporter by dominating electric vehicle (EV) production, surpassing traditional carmakers in Europe, Japan, and the U.S.

This shift stems from China’s heavy investment in battery technology, supply chains, and generous subsidies, enabling it to produce cheaper EVs, like the BYD Seal, compared to Western competitors.

Europe and America, reliant on outdated internal combustion engine expertise, have struggled to adapt to this disruptive innovation.

Many nations are imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs, but without robust domestic battery infrastructure, Western car industries face mounting challenges as the EV transition accelerates.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    They took apart the publicly available specs and put them back together. Battery tech idled for quite a while. There was freely available academic stuff on them. China isn’t going to expose itself where it doesn’t have to. They aren’t operating in good faith, but they aren’t dumb either.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        4 days ago

        I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m saying they have far more pressing things to spy on, like the F-35. Also, you should really vet your sources, that story fell apart 6 months later. (link) (link) (link)

        The last one refences Op Aurora if you want to read about what the Chinese consider being worth espionage. A lot of the IP theft for non secure stuff comes from the laws that any Non-Chinese company in China has to buddy with a Chinese company and knock off products soon flood China. This doesn’t necessarily mean tech or trade stuff has been stolen though. Chinese knock off companies have no problem recreating the shell of something with substandard parts inside. The problem is so bad that OEM electronics manufacturers can no longer guarantee their stuff does what it says it does. You can buy an Anker phone charger and find out the hard way it was from a factory that did this inside Anker’s own supply chain. (Anker is a peripherals and accessories electronics company based in China that sells all over the world.)