nytimes.com
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Chinese technology companies are paving the way for a world that will be powered by electric motors rather than gas-guzzling engines. It is a decisively 21st-century approach not just to solve its own energy problems, but also to sell batteries and other electric products to everyone else. Canada is its newest buyer of EVs; in a rebuke of Mr. Trump, its prime minister, Mark Carney, lowered tariffs on the cars as part of a new trade deal.

Though Americans have been slow to embrace electric vehicles, Chinese households have learned to love them. In 2025, 54 percent of new cars sold in China were either battery-powered or plug-in hybrids. That is a big reason that the country’s oil consumption is on track to peak in 2027, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency. And Chinese E.V makers are setting records — whether it’s BYD’s sales (besting Tesla by battery-powered vehicles sold for the first time last year) or Xiaomi’s speed (its cars are setting records at major racetracks like Nürburgring in Germany).

  • melfie@lemy.lolEnglish
    262·
    6 hours ago

    I’d sooner buy a Chinese EV than a Tesla, but the orange gameshow host running my country says I can’t.

    • mirshafie@europe.pubEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      I want a fucking Huawei P70. The 10x camera on that thing can practically take stabilized macro photos from a 5 m distance. But Ursula says Orange Man will spank her if she allows competition to Apple and Google.

    • 3abas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      2 hours ago

      Because Biden said you could? He’s the one that doubled tariffs on Chinese EVs from 50% to 100%. Biden also gave the EV tax credit which was essentially a subsidy to Tesla, which Trump ended.

      Note that I’m not defending Trump, but simply noting that the US was heading in his direction. He’s a symptom of advanced disease, but you don’t get to blame him all the shitty things all US presidents ever did. He’s a raging tumor, but the cancer was spreading already.

      • mirshafie@europe.pubEnglish
        3·
        2 hours ago

        You’re absolutely right. Trump is a lightning rod for rage, but most of what the US is doing is bipartisan. It’s a huge problem that so many people harbor false hope for the controlled opposition.

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.netEnglish
      8·
      6 hours ago

      I can hold out on not buying a new car a hell of a lot longer than the American economy can survive under a tariff regime.

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
      1·
      4 hours ago

      For Australians (alas, big Teska supporters) and much of the world they are all made in China anyway.

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
        31·
        3 hours ago

        US is the same as China now. Well that’s not true, US foreign policy is way more batshit insane than China’s. If you can even call it a foreign policy… it seems to me it’s just the whims of a deranged old child molester surrounded by fucking Nazis.

        And China is further away and there’s pretty much zero probability China will invade my country. With the US, who knows? Kinda stupid to send money to a country I may have to be fighting against within a year.

      • Auth@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        5 hours ago

        Trump is following in china’s footsteps. His longterm plan will fail because he is not authoritarian enough to retain power. If the CCP were in his shoes they’d have murdered millions of americans to ideologically cleanse the country.