Electric Cars: Made in China?

The Bottom Line

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Business

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

China produces more than half the world's electric vehicles and is scaling up exports, but there are concerns its manufacturers would have an unfair advantage in the UK, which could spell disaster for domestic firms.

Evan Davis and guests discuss the UK's dilemma around Chinese EVs - do we open our doors to the competition, which might mean cheaper electric cars for consumers and a quicker transition to net zero, or should the government follow the USA and EU in considering import restrictions to protect domestic car-makers?

Plus, do buyers really care where their EV is made, and will 100% of new car sales be electric by 2035?

Evan is joined by:

Ginny Buckley, editor-in-chief and founder, electrifying.com; Victor Zhang, UK country director of Omoda and Jaecoo (made by Chery); James Taylor, UK managing director, Vauxhall; Fraser Brown, managing director, MotorVise

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Producer: Simon Tulett Researcher: Drew Hyndman Editor: Matt Willis Sound: Neil Churchill Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:05.0	This is the podcast version of the programme with some extra material in it.
0:09.7	Hello, welcome to the programme and our new summer series.
0:13.8	And today we felt we needed to return to what is surely one of the biggest business stories in the world this decade.
0:20.2	The battle for dominance in the market for electric vehicles.
0:24.2	In fact, it's really two related stories, each very important.
0:27.8	One, of course, is the global transition to EVs,
0:30.7	a transition that is meant really to replace the existing one and a half billion or so cars around the world,
0:38.5	replace those with electric powered ones. And then secondly, we have the emerging success of Chinese EV manufacturers. China has
0:46.9	about half the world's EVs right now. The US and EU are keen to ensure that China can't dominate
0:52.8	the global market by what they regard as unfair
0:55.1	business practices, subsidies and the like, and in particular the UK has a decision to make
1:00.4	about whether to follow the US and the EU or whether to welcome potentially cheaper Chinese
1:06.2	products that might make the transition to EVs easier. So does the UK's electric vehicle industry need protection from China
1:13.9	and should the UK consumer care where their EV comes from?
1:17.6	We have four guests today to talk us through this. Let us meet them.
1:21.3	And first of all, I'm joined by Ginny Buckley,
1:23.1	who is a broadcaster journalist and founder of Electrifying.com,
1:26.8	a consumer guide to all things,
1:29.3	EV.
1:30.6	Junie, let's just start because the global market in cars, it's been so interesting over the
1:36.4	decades.
	...

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