Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Sales in April hit 2.07 million units in the world’s biggest car market, up 4.4 per cent from a year earlier, according to the country’s largest industry association
The number of new energy vehicles (NEVs) sold fell for a tenth straight month to
The global industry has been hit hard by the health crisis, but there is growing optimism of improvement in business in China as the country has largely contained the outbreak and started easing lockdown measures. Photo: AFP
China’s monthly car sales rose for the first time in almost two years in April, industry data showed, as more customers visited showrooms after the economy began to open up and authorities loosened coronavirus-related travel restrictions.
Sales in April hit 2.07 million units in the world’s biggest car market, up 4.4 per cent from a year earlier, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the country’s largest industry association.
as the pandemic pummelled demand. Monthly sales in China last rose in June 2018.
The number of new energy vehicles (NEVs) sold fell for a tenth straight month to 72,000 units, the data showed. NEVs include battery-powered electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
The global industry has been hit hard by the health crisis, but there is growing optimism of improvement in business in China as the country has largely contained the outbreak and started easing lockdown measures.
Volkswagen reported positive China sales in April, while General Motors’ China ventures saw double-digit year-on-year growth last month.
Image copyright HAN ZHUImage caption Choosing an electric car was an easy decision for Shenzhen resident Han Zhu
Han Zhu is on a mission to go green. The 29-year-old data analyst wants her next car to be electric. But her reasons for buying an electric vehicle are in part practical.
In the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, government restrictions on the number of petrol cars sold each year mean she would have to enter a lottery or auction to be able to buy a petrol vehicle.
“There is a possibility you may never get it. With the electric vehicle green licence, you don’t have to wait in line,” she says.
Shenzhen has become the showpiece capital for the Chinese electric dream. In 2017 it became the first city in the world to introduce a fleet of electric buses. A year later, the government rolled out a plan to replace city taxis with electric cars.
“In Shenzhen, in almost every residential building there are two charging units. One out of 10 cars on the street are Teslas,” she says. “In China if the policy leads in one direction, technology and money goes in that direction too,” she says.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption China has the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles
In less than a decade China’s new electric vehicle market has become the largest in the world. In 2018 more than a million electric vehicles were sold in China, more than three times the number sold in the US.
Beijing invested an estimated $50bn (£43bn) in the industry, hoping that today’s dominance of the electric vehicle market would lead to global automobile supremacy tomorrow.
And thus far the policy has been working. Over the last three years the number of Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers has tripled, with more than 400 registered nationwide.
But that breakneck expansion alarmed the government. Last year it decided to put the brakes on by withdrawing approximately half of its financial incentives for buyers.
A slump in sales quickly followed, in the last quarter of 2019 sales for electric vehicles plummeted.
Now the coronavirus has supplied a second punch.
Manufacturers have been forced to halt production lines and close dealerships in a bid to stop the spread of virus.
Overall auto sales in plunged 79% in February compared with the same month in 2019, according to figures from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) fell for the eighth month in a row.
“China’s auto market was already reeling from a large drop in demand in 2019. In 2020 no carmaker has been immune to the effects of the coronavirus. That includes everyone from the oldest joint ventures producing internal combustion engine SUVs to the most innovative upstarts making connected electric vehicles,” says Scott Kennedy from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The vast majority [of electric car makers] will not survive. But how long they survive and whether industry consolidation occurs through lots of mergers or bankruptcies will depend on the willingness of the government.”
Image copyright NIOImage caption The NIO EP9 is one of the fastest electric cars in the world
After listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018 and raising billions of dollars, NIO is perhaps the highest-profile Chinese maker of electric cars.
But in the five years since it was founded it has been beset by problems and has burned through hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2019 the company cut 2,000 jobs on the back of falling revenues. In February it announced it had signed a tentative agreement with a local government that has pledged to fund the company.
“China is a huge market growing at an immense pace. We will adjust and adapt to the market condition,” said an NIO spokesperson.
And it’s not just the car makers. China has some giant makers of components, such as batteries.
In 2018 CATL, a Chinese electric battery maker, became the official supplier of BMW’s electric cars.
Last month Tesla announced it would enter into an agreement with the company to supply batteries for Tesla’s newly built Shanghai mega-plant, capable of producing 500,000 vehicles a year.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption China’s BYD is the one of the world’s biggest makers of electric vehicles
But despite that apparent success, analysts have their doubts.
“Chinese auto and battery technology is still not world-class. CATL and BYD are strong battery makers, but they are still somewhat behind technologically from their South Korean and Japanese counterparts. And Chinese automakers are still second-class producers even in their own country and they have barely any sales outside China,” says Mr Kennedy.
For car buyers, that question of quality hangs over China’s electric car makers.
Yi Zhi Yong, a middle-aged entrepreneur, drives a hybrid car made by Chinese manufacturer BYD. Backed by US billionaire Warren Buffett, the company was the third-largest battery-only electric car producer in the world in 2019, according to research by EV-volumes.com. Tesla sold the most, followed by another Chinese firm, BAIC.
He didn’t buy a pure electric vehicle because he is not confident about the quality.
“The quality of domestic pure electric vehicles is not good at the moment,” he says. “No domestic pure electric vehicle is worth buying yet.”
But he feels the progress made by China is a source of national pride. “In the 1990s we couldn’t imagine that China could build cars that can compete with the Japanese,” he says.
Back in Shenzhen, Han Zhu says the rolling back of government subsidies won’t put her off buying an electric vehicle. But rather than buying a Chinese marque, she has her eye on a Tesla.
“I think that they are totally different. I was super excited about Tesla but not other electric cars,” she says.
Deliveries will start in the next six to 10 months, carmaker says
Tesla will take on Chinese carmakers such as Geely and SAIC, and electric car start-ups including Nio and Xpeng Motors
Tesla said on Friday that its Model 3 electric car, which will be assembled in China, will be ready for deliveries in six to 10 months. Photo: AFP
Customers can pre-order the Model 3 assembled in China after Tesla announced on Friday that it would be priced 13 per cent lower than the US imports, taking the electric carmaker a step closer in tapping the world’s largest EV market.
The standard range plus Model 3 car that Tesla plans to assemble at the Gigafactory 3 in Lingang, Shanghai, will be priced at 328,000 yuan (US$47,529), 49,000 yuan cheaper than the same model currently imported from the US.
Tesla’s US-built cars are now subject to a 25 per cent import duty in China. The bestselling US electric carmaker plans to start deliveries in the next six to 10 months.
“Today we announced that Model 3 Standard Range Plus vehicles built at Gigafactory Shanghai will begin at 328,000 yuan for our customers in China,” Tesla said in a statement.
Aerial view of the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory under construction in Lingang, Shanghai, on May 10, 2019. Photo: Imaginechina
The model has a range of 460km and a top speed of 225km/h.
Industry observers said that the price of the locally made car aimed at the mass market is on the higher side, adding that a 300,000 yuan price tag could attract thousands of Chinese buyers.
“If a Chinese customer can buy a Tesla car for less than 300,000 yuan, many of them will make a decision on the spur of the moment since it is viewed as the best EV in the world,” said Tian Maowei, a sales manager at Shanghai-based Yiyou Auto Service.
Tesla rushes Model 3s to China before trade war truce expires
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order barring US companies from using telecoms equipment made by companies that pose a threat to national security, a move aimed at shutting out Huawei Technologies.
US technology companies including Google and Microsoft have severed business ties with Huawei to comply with the US trade ban.
Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 is expected to make around 3,000 Model 3 vehicles a week in the initial phase. Photo: AP
In January, Tesla started construction on a US$5 billion wholly-owned plant in Shanghai, the city’s single largest foreign direct investment just three months after it secured a land parcel to make electric cars locally.
The factory will produce Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles that are seen as affordable to drivers in China.
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Gigafactory 3 is expected to make around 3,000 Model 3 vehicles a week in the initial phase, ramping up to 500,000 per year when it becomes fully operational, Tesla said.
Tesla will take on Chinese carmakers such as Geely and SAIC and electric car start-ups including Nio and Xpeng Motors in China where sales of new-energy vehicles including battery-powered and plug-ins are expected to jump 27 per cent this year to 1.6 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
In March Beijing announced a cut in cash subsidies offered to NEV buyers by up to 60 per cent, believing it was time to remove the crutches and cull an industry that had spawned hundreds of small manufacturers.
It is unclear whether Tesla vehicles will receive subsidies from the Chinese government.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 