Tag: Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

Chinese Cars Star at Munich Auto Show, Underscoring German Economic Woes

Media Library

For decades, the phrase “Made in Germany” signaled cutting-edge automotive technology and design. But now German automakers are falling behind in the global race to produce more electric vehicles, and some executives are using a new catchphrase to describe how quickly they need to catch up: “China speed.” The term reflects the rapid transformation of the Chinese car industry into a battery-powered juggernaut. And that speed was on display Monday at I.A.A. Mobility, a massive auto show in Munich, with newcomers from China stealing the show. BYD, an all-electric Chinese…

What Can Replace China as a Global Economic Engine?

Media Library

This is not a trivial matter. To an extent that few Americans genuinely appreciate, global growth has been powered by the so-called Chinese miracle for almost half a century now. According to World Bank data, between 2008 and 2021 — as the world’s per capita G.D.P. grew by 30 percent and China’s by 263 percent — China accounted for more than 40 percent of all global growth. If you excluded China from the data, global G.D.P. over that period would have grown not by 51 percent but by 33 percent,…

When Great Power Conflict and Climate Action Collide

Media Library

Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ The global decarbonization effort is colliding headfirst with the realities of great power politics. China currently controls more than 75 percent of the world’s electric vehicle battery and solar photovoltaic manufacturing supply chains. It also processes the bulk of the so-called critical minerals, like lithium, cobalt and graphite, that are essential to building out clean energy technologies. There is no clean energy revolution without China. What would happen if China decided to weaponize its clean energy resources in the same way Russia recently weaponized…

How Geopolitics Is Complicating the Move to Clean Energy

Media Library

He is known as the Minister for Everything. From the government offices of Indonesia’s capital to dusty mines on remote islands, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan commands authority as the nation’s essential power broker. A four-star general turned business magnate turned cabinet officer, Mr. Luhut’s paramount aspiration is transforming Indonesia into a hub for the production of electric vehicles. But as he pursues that goal, he and his country are increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical forces beyond their control. Though this archipelago nation has long sidestepped entanglements in ideological rivalries, it is increasingly…

Volkswagen Seeks to Regain Edge in China as It Cuts Delivery Forecast

Media Library

The Numbers Volkswagen said its after-tax earnings fell by 20 percent in the first half of the year, to 8.5 billion euros, or $9.45 billion, compared with the same period last year. But overall revenue increased 18.2 percent as the company stemmed some of its losses in China, where deliveries were down 1.2 percent. Western Europe provided the company with its strongest business, with 1.65 million vehicles ordered in the first half of the year, and 200,000 of them — or 12 percent — were electric vehicles, the company said.…

Lawmakers Challenge Ford and Chinese Battery Partner Over Forced Labor

Media Library

A partnership between Ford Motor and a major Chinese battery maker is facing scrutiny by Republican lawmakers, who say it could make an American automaker reliant on a company with links to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. In a letter sent to Ford on Thursday, the chairs of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Ways and Means Committee demanded more information about the partnership, including what they said was a plan by Ford to employ several hundred workers from China at a new…

Tesla’s Profit Rose in the Second Quarter as Price Cuts Spurred Demand

Media Library

Tesla reported a rise in profit for the second quarter after the company led by Elon Musk cut prices in response to increased competition and higher borrowing costs for car buyers. The company said on Wednesday that it earned $2.7 billion from April through June, compared with $2.5 billion in the first quarter of this year and $2.3 billion in the second quarter of 2022. Sales rose 7 percent, to $25 billion, from last quarter. Lower average sales prices, as well as the cost to produce a new pickup truck,…

How the World’s Two Largest Polluters, U.S. and China, Stack Up

Media Library

John Kerry, President Biden’s climate change envoy, wraps up high-level talks with Chinese officials on Wednesday aimed at finding ways to work together on climate change despite simmering tensions between the two world powers. The United States and China are the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters as well as the world’s green tech powerhouses. If they can agree to speed plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it could be consequential for the world’s ability to stay within safe limits of global warming. But there are significant hurdles, including longstanding tensions…

Tesla’s Second Quarter Sales and Deliveries Rise as Tax Credits Fuel Demand

Media Library

Tesla sales rose a better-than-expected 10 percent in the second quarter as the company led by Elon Musk benefited from government incentives and price cuts that made its electric cars less expensive than comparable gasoline models. Tesla delivered 466,000 vehicles from April through June, up from 423,000 vehicles in the previous quarter, the company said on Sunday. Compared with a year earlier, sales in the second quarter rose 83 percent as the company expanded production at new factories in Austin, Texas, and near Berlin. The sales figures exceeded estimates by…

Tesla Sales Surge as Tax Credits Fuel Demand

Media Library

Tesla sales rose 10 percent in the second quarter as the company led by Elon Musk benefited from government incentives and price cuts that made its electric cars less expensive than comparable gasoline models. Tesla delivered 466,000 vehicles from April through June, up from 423,000 vehicles in the previous quarter, the company said on Sunday. Compared with a year earlier, sales in the second quarter rose 83 percent as the company expanded production at new factories in Austin, Texas, and near Berlin. Rules that took effect this year allowed buyers…