China Is Flooding The Market With EVs And Other Nations Can’t Keep Up

You don’t have to look any further than the stock market ticker to see that a number of once-promising EV automakers are tanking — and even Tesla isn’t immune to Wall Street sell-offs.

Some of that is due to the waning public interest in electric vehicles, but there’s also an international factor at play: namely, China.

Ramping up production

Although many Western consumers associate China with a wide array of inexpensive imported goods, automobiles generally haven’t been on that list. But in the age of EVs, that perception is rapidly changing.

Take a look at these stats:

• China produced more than half of all EVs sold worldwide last year.
• The 1.2 million it exported in 2023 was 80% higher than the previous year.
• 60% of all global EV sales throughout last year were in China.

The EV industry is currently valued at about $2.6 trillion, so it’s no surprise that China wants a big piece of that action. And with its EVs generally much cheaper than rivals from other countries, it’s also not a shock that they’ve become popular in other countries around the world.

The West plays catchup

Although many of China’s exported EVs end up elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe has rapidly become one of the biggest markets for these vehicles. This means automakers that are more widely recognized by Western consumers are now struggling, and often failing, to keep up with the frantic pace at which these vehicles are flooding the market.

That trend is only expected to accelerate as Chinese automakers open factories outside of the country. The most notable is BYD, a brand that temporarily overtook Tesla as the world’s biggest EV company last year and is slated to begin building up to 150,000 vehicles a year in Thailand starting this year.

Chris Agee April 25th, 2024

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