China Leads the Way in Electric Vehicles - and has Global Ambitions

This video from the WSJ is simply packed with business gold for students exploring international business, and in particular the impact of technological change on global industries.

China is already the world leader in production of electric vehicles("EVs") making around half of global output, with the US producing around a quarter.

This is no accident. The heavy and widespread use of subsidies in China has significantly reduced the cost of buying an EV. There are now around 700,000 EV owners there, encouraged not only by the subsidies, but also by the restrictions on licensing of gasoline-fuelled vehicles in the major cities.

China has set itself two key objectives for the EV market:

(1) To be selling 15 million EVs in China by 2030 (no surprise therefore that the likes of Tesla are planning to open production capacity there), and

(2) For China to have two leading global brands in the EV market by 2025. The video suggests that, in order to achieve this objective, Chinese car manufacturers may need to significantly improve their production quality.