Featured China far ahead of US, Europe in total electric vehicle sales

it's easier to do under a communist regime than a democracy.

 

Electric vehicles manufactured to high standards are still relatively expensive. As the article implies, corner cutting is a very large part of China being ahead:

...vehicle-construction standards in China, where all but four percent of plug-ins are domestically produced, may not quite match up to those in Europe or the US. More than 90 percent of China plug-ins are compacts, sub-compacts or neighborhood-electric vehicles, meaning that very few of those vehicles would feel at home on US highways.

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China is also just now cutting down on some very generous subsidies, but still maintains aggressive protectionist tariffs against imports that would otherwise compete in their market.

 

What, offer incentives to buyers to that will shift consumer habits? Japan didn't seem to have any problems doing such for hybrids.

The car buyers having actual experiences of how bad air pollution can get probably also helps.

 

In China, I am thinking we are talking about lead-acid batteries in most of those too.

 

there are incentives, and there are incentives. no idea what's happening in japan, but they assimilate well.

 

Possible if the sales numbers are counting things like NEVs(golf carts), but China also has some big lithium battery companies.

Part of the reason the PiP didn't do well in Japan was because there were still generous hybrid incentives available. Better fuel economy alone didn't get hybrids to their 20 to 30 percent market share.

 

know what else is easy? Selling junky little EV cars with minimal features & zero safety features.



Sure, it makes 'em affordable when the average person makes very little. But even so, considering not too many decades ago there were tons of rickshaws on the streets - things are getting better.
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