- cross-posted to:
- cars@gearhead.town
- cross-posted to:
- cars@gearhead.town
question. I read that Chinese EVs weren’t taken seriously by the public until about 2020, when Giga Shanghai came over. Apparently Tesla’s requirements raised the bar for Chinese EV parts suppliers and now all Chinese EV brands have access to world-class parts. Is that a big reason behind this as well?
It’s more that there was no real competition in the EV space so plenty of OEMs sort of phoned it in, and while that was fine for city cars having an actually competitive EV in the “core” market of sedans and crossovers made everyone else get serious
It’s incredible how much it’s grown in 3 years, if it keeps going like that and VW and Toyota still have no attractive EVs to offer they’ll become small players in the Chinese market.
I worked in China but left right after the initial pandemic lockdown in June 2020, back then I barely saw any electric cars on the streets (lived in a big second tier city, not 100% sure on cities like Beijing and Shanghai). Mostly buses and taxis were electric, and only partially.
Now I go on Youtube and look at footage of China’s streets and it’s completely changed.