By Jack Barkenbus
In 2025, 1 in 4 new automotive vehicle sales globally are expected to be an electric vehicle – either fully electric or a plug-in hybrid.
That is a significant rise from just five years ago, when EV sales amounted to fewer than 1 in 20 new car sales, according to the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization examining energy use around the world.
In the U.S., however, EV sales have lagged, only reaching 1 in 10 in 2024. By contrast, in China, the world’s largest car market, more than half of all new vehicle sales are electric.
The International Energy Agency has reported that two-thirds of fully electric cars in China are now cheaper to buy than their gasoline equivalents. With operating and maintenance costs already cheaper than gasoline models, EVs are attractive purchases.
Most EVs purchased in China are made there as well, by a range of different companies. NIO, Xpeng, Xiaomi, Zeekr, Geely, Chery, Great Wall Motor, Leapmotor and especially BYD are household names in China. As someone who has followed and published on the topic of EVs for over 15 years, I expect they will soon become as widely known in the rest of the world.
What kinds of EVs is China producing?
China’s automakers are producing a full range of electric vehicles, from the subcompact, like the BYD Seagull, to full-size SUVs, like the Xpeng G9, and luxury cars, like the Zeekr 009.
Recent European crash-test evaluations have given top safety ratings to Chinese EVs, and many of them cost less than similar models made by other companies in other countries.
What’s behind Chinese EV success?
There are several factors behind Chinese companies’ success in producing and selling EVs. To be sure, relatively low labor costs are part of the explanation. So are generous government subsidies, as EVs were one of several advanced technologies selected by the Chinese government to propel the nation’s global technological profile.
But Chinese EV makers are also making other advances. They make significant use of industrial robotics, even to the point of building so-called “dark factories” that can operate with minimal human intervention. For passengers, they have reimagined vehicles’ interiors, with large touchscreens for information and entertainment, and even added a refrigerator, bed or karaoke system.
Competition among Chinese EV makers is fierce, which drives additional innovation. BYD is the largest seller of EVs, both domestically and globally. Yet the company says it employs over 100,000 scientists and engineers seeking continual improvement.
From initial concept models to actual rollout of factory-made cars, BYD takes 18 months – half as long as U.S. and other global automakers take for their product development processes, Reuters reported.
BYD is also the world’s second-largest EV battery seller and has developed a new battery that can recharge in just five minutes, roughly the same time it takes to fill a gas-powered car’s tank.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Exports
The real test of how well Chinese vehicles appeal to consumers will come from export sales. Chinese EV manufacturers are eager to sell abroad because their factories can produce far more than the 25 million vehicles they can sell within China each year – perhaps twice as much.
China already exports more cars than any other nation, though primarily gas-powered ones at the moment. Export markets for Chinese EVs are developing in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Australia and elsewhere.
The largest market where Chinese vehicles, whether gasoline or electric, are not being sold is North America. Both the U.S. and Canadian governments have created what some have called a “tariff fortress” protecting their domestic automakers, by imposing tariffs of 100% on the import of Chinese EVs – literally doubling their cost to consumers.
Customers’ budgets matter too. The average price of a new electric vehicle in the U.S. is approximately $55,000. Less expensive vehicles make up part of this average, but without tax credits, which the Trump administration is eliminating after September 2025, nothing gets close to $25,000. By contrast, Chinese companies produce several sub-$25,000 EVs, including the Xpeng M03, the BYD Dolphin and the MG4 without tax credits. If sold in America, however, the 100% tariffs would remove the price advantage.
Tesla, Ford and General Motors all claim they are working on inexpensive EVs. More expensive vehicles, however, generate higher profits, and with the protection of the “tariff fortress,” their incentive to develop cheaper EVs is not as high as it might be.
In the 1970s and 1980s, there was considerable U.S. opposition to importing Japanese vehicles. But ultimately, a combination of consumer sentiment and the willingness of Japanese companies to open factories in the U.S. overcame that opposition, and Japanese brands like Toyota, Honda and Nissan are common on North American roads. The same process may play out for Chinese automakers, though it’s not clear how long that might take.
Jack Barkenbus is a Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt University.
BIG Neighbor says
Capitalism over Communism, right…that’s what we’re all about? Looks like the opposite to me when we actually leave behind the hyperbole of calling opponents Marxists while practicing it openly by clamping an open market? Way to let others dominate innovation so the elite can protect there own in oil over OUR interests. They just won’t let go…
Ray W. says
Thank you, Big Neighbor.
Yes, with me intentionally borrowing terms others among us use to describe democrats, the communist they put into the White House in 2024 just signed an executive order forcing our military to buy more expensive coal-generated electricity, thereby managing a portion of the American economy from the top down. His Department of Energy head has been issuing executive orders that keep open comparatively expensive coal-fired power plants that were scheduled to close, so that customers can pay more for the electricity they consume, thereby managing a portion of the American economy from the top down. The Texas legislature recently voted on two different occasions to make available to natural gas power plant projects nearly $10 billion in taxpayer funds, because the projects can’t be financed on their own by private lenders, thereby managing a portion of the Texas economy from the top down.
It’s one thing for a government to economically support an emerging sector of an industry, quite another to economically support a declining and increasingly uncompetitive sector of an industry.
Who knew that today’s Republicans would favor an economy managed from the top down? Only one person can fix things!
Who knew that the independent Fed needs to be managed from the top down? Who knew that international free market trade needs to be managed from the top down? Who knew that an independent American judiciary needs to be managed from the top down?
Exactly when did one of our two political parties retreat from its self-proclaimed principles of conservative thought?
Winston Churchill left Great Britain’s Conservative Party in 1904 when it announced tariffs as its economic policy. Decades later, he denounced the government when the Liberal Party announced tariffs as its economic policy. For decades, at great political cost, the person who later became the British darling of the Republican Party vehemently opposed tariffs on the ground that they were a tax on food.
Laurel says
BIG Neighbor: Ray W is exactly correct!
Also, look at it this way: If you traded with your next door neighbor, call him Joe, and Joe decided your deal wasn’t good enough for him, and started strong arming you, threatening to take your land, and became unstable and erratic, would you not go around him? Of course you would go elsewhere. That’s what Canada is doing, and you can’t blame them. We have become unreliable, thanks to Trump.
Do yourself a favor, and watch a speech, any speech, from Trump. Then, watch a speech from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and ask yourself who you would rather have in charge. Be honest with yourself. Carney is an economist who previously served as the Governor of the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of England. He is no fool. He speaks with experience, eloquence and wisdom, while slipping back and forth between French and English seamlessly. Trump blathers on with “weave,” hatred, and name calling. There is no comparison.
This is not a reality TV show, this is our lives.
BillC says
“It’s one thing for a government to economically support an emerging sector of an industry, quite another to economically support a declining and increasingly uncompetitive sector of an industry.”
Bullseye!
Dennis C Rathsam says
As long as theres a Republican president, you wont see China cars on American streets!
Pierre Tristam says
“Trump reviews potential entry of Chinese automakers with US auto industry.”–El Pais, Feb. 16.
“Dennis C. Rathsam, Exhausted, Resigns as Trump administration’s busiest bot in Flagler County.”—The Observer’s April Fool’s edition, upcoming.
Laurel says
Dennis C. Rathsam: Republicans used to strongly believe in free enterprise. But I know you’re not listening.
Bo Peep says
Where are the millions of depleted batteries doing to be disposed of when the reach the end of their life? Into the earth, launched into. Space? Just wondering what the plan is for that. EVs will advance in America on their own merit when the technology and infrastructure in fully in place to support their use for long distance travel and as battery technology improves. Until then we do not need the leftists to force their success on the backs of the American Taxpayer in order to make a China better off.
Pierre Tristam says
Bo Peep, you wrote your comment using energy produced in part (about 24 percent, anyway) by nuclear power, if you’re an FPL customer, as we all are in this county. Have you shown equal concern about the far, far more lethal and longer-lasting nuclear waste making your ideological bile possible? The question answers itself.
R.S. says
And FPL for sure does not give a darned about our safety: in 2012 when the safety engineer wanted to take a reactor offline because it had cracks, FPL fired the safety engineer and kept on running the reactor. Actually, the 100 percent tariffs on Chinese e-vehicles hurt our own industries in the long run because rather than attempting to become competitive and innovate, our industry will simply relax and become further outdated. Also, depleted batteries can be recycled much more efficiently than the carbon dioxide that’s added to our atmosphere by gas burners.
Ray W. says
Thank you, R.S.
Chris says
Just wait until Dozy Don starts using coal to make energy ! I am sure that coal now burns clean and has no waste to dispose of !
DaleL says
Bo Peep, it costs a lot of money to mine the raw materials for the lithium batteries which power EVs. Just do a web search and you will find that companies will buy batteries to recycle. That’s right, end of life EV batteries are recycled. They are not buried or launched into space. The plan is to recycle them and use the lithium, cobalt, nickle to make new batteries.
https://www.batteryrecyclersofamerica.com/commercial-solutions/?matchtype=p&network=s&device=c&placement=&msclkid=e9cf1bda2aca1bb2745d724146a50528
I love my three year old EV. I do not miss buying gasoline or changing engine oil.
Ray W. says
Bo Peep, in his or her last comment in this thread, exposes backwards thinking in the argument that leftists are making China wealthier.
The undeniable truth is that American and other western researchers led the world in EV battery innovation 20 years ago. But one of our two political parties decided it politically advantageous to lie to the American people in hopes that people such as Bo Peep would launder their lies.
In the early 1980s, the Chinese government announced a long-term policy to beat the West in ICE technology. At the time, the entire nation produced 2,500 cars.
After more than 25 years of effort, China’s government admitted failure and announced it was shifting emphasis to EVs. Since then, support for ICE research stopped. In a mere 17 years, more than 50% of China’s 31 million vehicle annual output is “New Electric Vehicle.” Ford’s CEO says we are 10 years behind China.
This did not have to happen. But for American political stupidity we could be still be leading the world in all facets of EV innovation. I have said this far too often. Of all the many different Chinese battery chemistries out there in the marketplace, lithium-ferrous-phosphate batteries are expected to achieve a 50% market share this year. The chemistry was developed at an American university. It was patented here. A factory was built here. It soon failed. A Chinese company swooped in and bought the remnants out of the ashes. Now, American car companies pay China for the technology.
Please, Bo Peep, disabuse yourself of your delusion. We threw away our advantage out of stupidity. It was a paucity of vision. We give the fossil fuel energy industry an estimated $20 billion a year in incentives and tax breaks and other financial support, but a valuable technology was permitted to fail here before it succeeded elsewhere.
Ford’s CEO openly says that for years he looked at EV’s the wrong way. He says Ford wasted billions of dollars and years of development time because it just couldn’t see. He visited China in 2024 and rented a EV made by a company that had produced its first car in 2021. He brought one back with him and drove it for six months. He says the car makes driving fun again. He says it is better than anything made by the American Big Three. He says that allowing Chinese EV’s into the country without tariffs would kill off the American car industry.
Don’t you get it, Bo Peep? This isn’t me talking. Ford’s CEO openly says that in 17 years, the American car industry threw away every propulsion advantage brought by over 100 years of combined knowledge and expertise. Ford is betting big on developing a lithium-manganese-rich battery chemistry that might or might not work. If it works, the batteries will outperform any of today’s ICE vehicles. Ford knows how to make ICE cars, but that is its past, not its future. In Econ 101, this is called creative destruction. In industry slang, this is called a Model T moment.
Exactly who gives a shit if, by way of backwards thinking, you fool yourself into believing that leftists are sending money to China. How embarrassingly stupid is your form of thinking! You can parade all the political bullshit you want. I am arguing economic thought. You are arguing pestilential political theory.
Here is a form of thinking that every FlaglerLive reader ought to understand.
A number of UC-San Diego researchers took advantage of down time during the pandemic to consider a course of research. They concluded that a 100-year-old car battery technology, a $50-billion-per-year established industry, was ripe for disruption, i.e., ripe for creative destruction.
The industry? Lead-acid 12-volt car batteries. There are hundreds of millions of vehicles that use lead-acid batteries and each battery has a relatively short lifespan.
The existing battery industry can produce a lead-acid car battery at about $100 per unit. Such batteries are good for between 200 and 500 deep cycles before they can no longer hold a charge. When cold, battery performance significantly degrades. They deplete easily, when unused, which is why there is a big trickle-charger industry. If unsold on a store shelf long enough to allow for complete discharge, the unit is lost; it cannot be recharged. The gullible Bo Peep cannot understand that the world already annually disposes of hundreds of millions of highly pollutive and poisonous lead batteries, complete with highly corrosive battery acid, and has been doing so for decades.
The researchers decided on developing a sodium-chromium-oxide chemistry, which differs from the sodium-ion chemistry being developed for bigger, higher-voltage EV batteries. Their are hundreds chemistry is completely recyclable.
In five years, the team brought to market their idea, raising from private lenders all but $2.9 million that California added to the effort. They built a factory to refine and mix the chemicals, but only because it was their patented mix. Everything else they need has been contracted out to established foundries that already know how to make what they need. They didn’t build a whole new factory; they built an assembly plant. Their first sodium car battery was released for sale this past December.
Their business model is not to make the cheapest battery; it is to make a battery that offers the best value for the dollar.
Their battery already can be made at a cost comparable to the manufacture of lead-acid batteries, but at a weight 45% lower. Their battery already holds a full charge at temperatures as low as minus-40 degrees Celsius. It has a 10,000-cycle charging longevity, at least 20 times the lifespan of a lead-acid battery. No need for a trickle charger, because it doesn’t deplete when unused and it can be recharged even if 100% depleted.
The team thinks their product is at 50% of theoretical maximum capacity and that the near-future promises significant improvements.
The name of the company? UNIGRID.
Who knows if it will thrive? Does such a battery offer value for the money? Would every car owner want a battery for life at the same or a slightly higher price?
Ray W. says
Nio, a comparatively small Chinese carmaker, just crossed the one-million-cars-delivered threshold, a symbolic event not really that important, but for the fact that the company was founded only 12 years ago, in 2014, and it delivered its first vehicle in 2018.
In January 2026, the company delivered 27,182 “new electric vehicles”, up 96.1% from January 2025.
Nio has a unique business model.
The company has three brands. The high end Nio line. A mid-level Onvo line. And, a base level Firefly line. The company lists six different batteries, by energy capacity: 42.1 kWh; 65 kWh; 75 kWh; 85 kWh; 100 kWh; 120 kWh; and, 150 kWh.
Customers can pay for a car complete with a battery of their choosing, paying a separate price for each optional battery size. But, the customer can buy a car, sans battery, and then lease the battery, right now for about $100 per month. Discounted prices range from under $10,000 to around $17,000, depending on car size and battery capacity.
All Nio batteries bolt into all Nio models.
Here is the unique part of the business model. Any Nio owner can recharge their car’s battery at home. Any Nio owner can go to any one of multiple thousands of battery swap stations and receive in three to five minutes a fully charged battery of whatever capacity they choose. Software permits the company to determine the difference in power added in the fresh battery and the customer is charged 31 cents per kilowatt hour added, compared to the depleted battery. I checked for context only. On average including fees and charges, FP&L charges 13.6 cents per kilowatt hour.
Need to visit distant family? Opt for the biggest battery. Need to drive a short distance to work and back for a week? Select a smaller battery.
Yesterday, a record 175,796 battery swaps were recorded.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Can convenience outweigh comparatively less expensive home charging?
BIG Neighbor says
“Republicans would favor an economy managed from the top down? Only one person can fix things!”
I just don’t get how so many can be in denial, seeing all the radical sentinels of revolutionary leftist escape them to fit warm and cozy in their square neocon pegs, as WE all get sticked in our rounds. It’s like every time they want a policy shift, we get warned the opposition is implementing an impending insider threat…and then they pull the trigger to bring it about the changes to anchors those threats into place! Can I get an Hallelujah here? I mean, come on…how toxic does it need to get? I guess it’s true…if they can’t have it, no one will.