18 | New Scientist | 13 July 2019
FORGET Tesla – the world’s biggest
electric car manufacturer is a
Chinese company you have
probably never heard of. With
the age of the fossil-fuel car
drawing to an end, electric vehicles
(EVs) from China could be on track
for global dominance – assuming
that the hundreds of start-ups in
the sector don’t skid out and crash.
China buys more EVs than any
other nation. Last year, 1.25 million
electric cars – 984,000 of which
were solely battery-powered –
were sold in the country,
accounting for more than half of
all EVs sold globally. A significant
proportion of them were made
by BYD Auto, a firm headquartered
in Xi’an, China.
In 2018, BYD sold nearly 248,
zero-emissions vehicles globally,
outpacing Tesla’s sales of roughly
245,000. The company began in
1995 as a manufacturer of batteries
for mobile phones and digital
cameras, and has since expanded
to produce battery-powered cars,
buses and trucks. Last week, it
launched a fleet of 37 fully electric
double decker buses as part of
London’s public transport system.
Other Chinese companies with
international reach include Chery
and the Zhejiang Geely Holding
Group, which is the behemoth
that now owns Volvo, Lotus and
the London Taxi Company.Sam Korus, an analyst at
investment firm ARK, estimates
that there are nearly 500 EV
companies in China, many of
which are yet to produce their first
vehicle. Recent reports suggest
that 330 firms are registered
for government subsidies
encouraging investment in EVs.All this means that despite an
overall decline in car sales – the
number of Chinese-produced
cars sold last year dropped nearly
8 per cent from 2017 – the EV
industry is booming. Battery
electric vehicle sales rose by
more than 50 per cent in 2018.
“We are witnessing a transition
from internal combustion engine
vehicles to zero-emission
vehicles,” says Yunshi Wang,
director of the China Center for
Energy and Transportation at the
University of California, Davis.
The shift has been driven by
a Chinese government goal of
reaching 5 million “new-energy”
vehicles – including battery
electrics, hybrid cars and fuel-cell
cars – on China’s roads by 2020,subsidising both the supply and
demand,” says Jack Barkenbus
at the Vanderbilt Institute for
Energy and the Environment
in Tennessee.
For example, zero-emissions
licence plates have been
introduced in cities including
Shanghai and Beijing, where there
are restrictions on the number of
new car registrations each year.
In Shanghai, new licence plates
are sold for around 90,000 yuan
($13,000), says Wang. “If you buy
a zero-emission vehicle, you can
waive it and get the licence plate
right away,” he says. The wait for
a licence plate for an internal
combustion car is about two years.
Shen, an EV owner who lives in
Beijing, says he bought his first
electric car – a Geely DiHao – in
2016 because it was more difficult
to obtain a licence plate for a fossil-
fuel car. “In Beijing, if you have an
internal combustion car, there’s
one day a week you can’t drive it,
whereas there are no restrictions
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Energy security is also a
concern. About 70 per cent of
China’s crude oil is imported.
“China wants to rely mostly on
electricity, which it can produce
domestically,” says Wang.
The Chinese government has
been subsidising electric car
designs for a decade and has given
financial backing to many EV
manufacturers. It has also invested
in infrastructure for charging the
vehicles. By the end of last year,
China had an estimated 342,
public charging points – and new
residential buildings are required
to have somewhere to plug in.
In comparison, there are about
67,000 public chargers in the US.
Climate change and the quality
of the air are also important
factors. China has pledged to
reduce its carbon emissions in line
with its commitment to the Paris
climate agreement, and in June
2018, the government launched a
three-year action plan to fight air
pollution in its cities.
Under the plan, which covers
regions home to around one-third
of China’s population, heavy
logistics vehicles with internal
combustion engines will be
banned from entering cities.
“China is kind of a poster
child for incentives in that it is