Western media can't see through the veneer, it's true that China has vast amounts of eletric vehicle, but it's due in part to the tax cut and subsidies offered, the vehicles are generally of low quality and little effort put in, some look like ugly plastic toys, no real technology edge across-the-board.
Some cars are just cobbled together to claim subsidies or even defraud the government, since the subsidies are kinda huge, they can ask sky high prices for those garbage cars and make staggering amounts of profit.
Just search China EV Subsidy Fraud.
You can say on application side, China is ahead, but on technology side, the US is years ahead.
> the vehicles are generally of low quality and little effort put in, some look like ugly plastic toys, no real technology edge across-the-board.
Who cares, if they're not pumping out CO2?
If the price of avoiding ecological catastrophe is we all have to drive ugly electric cars for 25 years, any sane society should be thrilled with that compromise.
Beijing’s plate lottery has separate pools for ICE and EV cars, so if you want to get a car quickly in Beijing best to go with an EV. Even though Tesla doesn’t qualify for subsidies in China, they have been very popular as a non crap option for rich Beijingers who would have gotten an Audi instead.
I’ve ridden in a BYD electric taxi before and it felt like a normal car. As long as it doesn’t explode, I guess.
HK has its own regulations on car ownership, but they are also very strict/expensive, so I imagine there is some significant relaxation/discount for EVs. Also, HK doesn’t have high car import taxes like mainland China does, so there wouldn’t be as much reason to go BYD anyways.
Some cars are just cobbled together to claim subsidies or even defraud the government, since the subsidies are kinda huge, they can ask sky high prices for those garbage cars and make staggering amounts of profit. Just search China EV Subsidy Fraud.
You can say on application side, China is ahead, but on technology side, the US is years ahead.