China, explained.
Electric vehicles from BYD unloaded at the port in Lower Saxony, Wilhelmshaven, Germany (Hauke-Christian Dittrich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
China’s decades-long bet on electric vehicles is paying off – with Australia already riding in the back seat.
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Why your next car most likely to be an EV made in ChinaWhy your next car most likely to be an EV made in China
As the Beijing Auto Show wraps up for another year against the backdrop of a global fossil fuel supply crisis, it’s difficult to come to any conclusion other than your next passenger motor vehicle will most likely be an EV made in China – unless you live in the United States where tariff protection means you’ll be lucky to see one.
Beijing hosts the world’s largest auto show. This year it featured 1,451 vehicles, including 181 world premieres and 71 concept cars, across a record-breaking 380,000 square metres of exhibition space.
So where did all this come from? In 2007, I was serving at the Australian Embassy in Beijing and attended the Beijing Auto Show to see a new car company called BYD, having visited car makers including Chery in Wuhu, Anhui Province and Geely in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.
All three startups were making internal combustion cars but couldn’t match the build quality or production efficiency of their international competitors.
Bugatti had held the all-time speed record for six years. BYD built its challenger in 18 months.
Having realised that it could not compete with international automakers in internal combustion engine technology, China set out to lead in new energy vehicles. Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping outlined the goal during a visit to SAIC Motor (owner of IM, LDV and MG brands) in May 2014. This led to priority state funding and an international talent recruitment program.
During the Covid years, when international executives stayed away from China, the domestic industry made remarkable advances. Now companies such as CATL and BYD dominate global battery supply chains and lead on innovation, with low-cost sodium batteries set to come to market this year.
Four in five EVs sold in Australia are manufactured in China. Tesla exports to Australia from its factory in Shanghai. Mazda is leaning on its partner in China, Changan, to manufacture EVs for the Australian market. Hyundai and Kia are making models in China for Australia too.
So how did China’s lead come about?
The first was politics. In North America, the GM EV1 was leased from 1996 to 1999 and subsequently scrapped. It would be almost two decades before GM produced another EV, the Bolt. Apart from Tesla and a few startups such as Rivian, most North American automakers have scaled back their EV plans under the Trump administration.
In Japan too, despite early success with the Mitsubishi iMiEV and Nissan Leaf, the country has yet to start its EV transition. Toyota lobbied hard against EVs. It still sells lots of cars but the writing is on the wall and most of its EV models are manufactured in China.
European automakers may get a bit of a kick from the Australia–EU FTA and changes to the luxury car tax, but they are being outcompeted by China in their home market, prompting a managed-trade response.
The Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in China, 26 April 2026 (Ju Huanzong/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The second was model choice. Detroit auto makers went big with electric pickups (utes) given this was a profitable market segment for their internal combustion engine vehicles. But high weight and poor aerodynamics meant significant compromises on range and affordability.
Meanwhile, China’s most popular EV for a long time was a micro car, the Wuling Mini, only recently surpassed by the Tesla Model Y.
The third was the innovation cycle. While a traditional automaker comes out with a new model every 5–7 years, in China it is every 18–24 months. While Tesla developed a 48V architecture for its niche-market Cybertruck (up from 12V), Chery is putting it into mass-market production vehicles this year. Faced with cut-throat competition and declining sales at home, companies like BYD must export or perish.
And here’s a fun fact: Bugatti just lost its all-time speed record to a Chinese EV.
Bugatti had held the record for six years. Its W16 – with 1,600 hp, 8.0L and four turbochargers – hit 489 kilometres per hour. BYD’s Yangwang U9 Xtreme did 496 kilometres per hour with four electric motors and a 1,200V lithium iron phosphate battery pack. The Bugatti took 20 years to engineer. The Xtreme was built in 18 months.
Faced with cut-throat competition and declining sales at home, companies like BYD must export or perish.
Successive Australian governments have known for decades that Australia could be neither an efficient manufacturer of cars nor refiner of fuel, and allowed both industries to wither. While the immediate government response to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been to secure fuel supply, individuals are switching to electric vehicles to save money. EVs are already at price parity with their internal combustion engine counterparts, and strong second-hand EV sales since the crisis have eased concerns about residual values.
If an Australian car owner can charge from rooftop solar at home or work, driving an EV costs virtually nothing. Most jurisdictions also offer an EV charge plan that takes advantage of low price windows, such as the daytime solar duck curve.
There are concerns about data leakage and privacy, with some automakers capturing data to support autonomous driving technology as they pursue plans to provide transport as a service. There are ways to mitigate the risk, including opting out of data-sharing.
So your next car is most likely to be an EV made in China – unless you live in the United States.
About the author
Richard Neumann
Richard Neumann is Chair of the Smart Energy Council’s Smart Global and Smart Pacific Working Groups Pacific Working Group, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Franco-Australian Centre for Energy Transition at Swinburne University.
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