Is the US backing out of the electric vehicle market?

IRA FLATOW: This is Ira Flatow, and you’re listening to Science Friday. I’m very heavily invested in green energy, solar panels, battery car, the whole works. So when the lease on my electric car was running out, I went shopping for a new one. And you know what? I discovered just how few electric cars are available in the US right now. Many EV models were being discontinued in this country. China, on the other hand, is taking the opposite track. Last year, the Chinese carmaker BYD cruised past Tesla to become the number one selling EV car in the world.

Now, if you’ve never heard of BYD, that might be because you live in the US, where you can’t buy one. Tariffs and regulations have kept these Chinese electric cars off of American roads, but millions of people around the world, not just in China, bought a BYD last year. And they might come to Canada, where I might get to see you drive one. Electric cars, of course, run on batteries, and that’s another market that China has cornered. China leads the world in battery production. More than 70% of the world’s batteries come from China. So why is China lapping us in renewable energy tech? And what would it take for the US to catch up. Is it too late? Let me introduce my guest. Kyle Chan is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He studies Chinese technology development and industrial policy.

Welcome to Science Friday.

KYLE CHAN: Great to be here, Ira.

IRA FLATOW: Nice to have you. You wrote a really interesting op-ed piece for the New York Times called, in the future, China will be dominant. The US will be irrelevant. Tell me about that.

KYLE CHAN: Well, the headline wasn’t exactly my choosing, but the gist is captured there, which is at a time when China is doubling down on technology and especially clean technology EVs, batteries, wind, solar, smart grids, you name it, I felt like the US was doing the opposite. China is trying to build on its strengths– as you mentioned, BYD becoming this global player, Chinese battery companies like CATL investing in building factories around the world. And we don’t want to be left behind.

IRA FLATOW: Let’s dig a little bit deeper in this because this part really hit home. And you write, “China already leads global production in steel, aluminum, shipbuilding batteries, solar power, electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, 5G equipment, consumer electronics, active pharmaceutical ingredients, and bullet trains.” We’re going to be left in the dust with all this, it sounds like.

KYLE CHAN: Yeah, it’s supposed to be a wake-up call that we, the United States, have been used to being the leader in so many industries for so long, we maybe got a bit complacent. And we also have to update our understanding of China because it’s no longer the country that makes low-cost toys and clothing. They’ve moved up the value chain and are starting to become really competitive in areas that we used to be the world leaders in.

IRA FLATOW: Now let’s talk about what has created this shift. It must be that the government decided to move in this direction, no?

KYLE CHAN: Yeah, the government is a big part of the story, but not the entire story. Industrial policy here, I do think, is central. In the US, we’re used to letting the market play out. But for a lot of emerging technologies, and especially new industries where there might be some aspect that’s not captured by profits or shareholder value, like climate-related technologies, you might need some upfront investment, some extra incentives to get you going before this industry can really take off and be sustainable on its own.

And that’s where industrial policy can play a really crucial role in jumpstarting an industry. And China has used industrial policy across a whole range of industries from some of the older traditional heavy industries. You mentioned steel and aluminum shipbuilding. They’ve also tried it on industries like the automotive industry, new energy vehicles, as they call it in China. Battery electric vehicles, hybrid technology was a new area to explore and to grow in.

And so China is trying to use industrial policy, trying to use government support, not just subsidies or tax credits, but help with acquiring land, help with building infrastructure. Keep in mind, a lot of this is happening at the local government level, not necessarily at the national level, where you have local governments stepping in to help with permitting and licensing, just to help speed up the process of setting up a new factory, for example. And so what we’re seeing today, those industries that you mentioned that China is really dominating now, those are, in many ways, a product of China’s efforts to bend the market to be not just purely market-oriented but to serve these longer-term goals.

IRA FLATOW: It sort of seems that the US is watching China a bit because the Trump administration recently invested some money in Intel as a chip maker. They bought part of the company.

KYLE CHAN: That’s right. Yes. So in some ways, you see the US trying to take a page out of the Chinese playbook. I think that, for a long time, industrial policy in the United States was the policy that shall not be named. And the idea was, keep the government out, let private companies do their thing and–

IRA FLATOW: Don’t pick winners, we used to call that, right?

KYLE CHAN: Exactly, exactly. That was the big no, no. But things have changed. I think China is a major factor, but also a realization from COVID and the supply chain shocks of that time that– and also even now, supply chain shocks of today with the Strait of Hormuz that the old model of just in time inventory, where you are optimizing everything to be highly efficient and squeezing out costs and trying to squeeze out as much profit as possible in the near term, that might not be the best, most resilient strategy, especially when things don’t always go your way.

IRA FLATOW: Let’s focus on the BYD. We talked about this Chinese car maker. I watch YouTubes of the Chinese auto shows. I’m sure you do, or you go to them. I see cheaper, higher tech cars that I would love to drive, at least maybe take one out for a test drive. What do you make of this BYD car? Will you ever be able to get one in the US? And is that something I should just give up on?

KYLE CHAN: It’s a great question. I mean, the thing about these BYD cars and Chinese electric cars more generally is that not only are they much more affordable– I mean, you have BYD cars as cheap as getting close to $10,000 US.

IRA FLATOW: Really?

KYLE CHAN: Yeah. But not only are they cheaper, but they’re also packed with features and technology. So BYD in particular has been pioneering what they call megawatt charging, which is super fast charging– I mean, way faster than what even the fastest Tesla superchargers can do. And it allows you to charge your electric car in basically the same amount of time it would take to fill up a tank of gas at the gas station. So you can imagine how that would be a game changer if you’re worried about, having to pull over and wait 20-30 minutes to charge your car. So that’s one example.

Other areas where they’re trying to innovate are deeper integration with your phone, with other electronic devices to create this smart system. They’re also trying to build out smart driving capabilities– again, kind of like what you see with Tesla and their smart driving features. So there’s a whole range of areas where they’re trying to pack these cars with as many gizmos and gadgets as possible, while also trying to drive down the cost for consumers.

IRA FLATOW: Can I go to Canada and buy a BYD sooner or later?

KYLE CHAN: Yeah, I don’t know if they’ll let you drive it across the border, but Canada–

IRA FLATOW: Details, details.

KYLE CHAN: That’s right.

IRA FLATOW: Because they’re going to be sold in Canada. Or that’s at least the rumors about possible future.

KYLE CHAN: Yeah, that was a big announcement when Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, was actually visiting China to strike a deal. And basically, he said, Chinese electric cars can come in at a lower tariff rate. But here’s the catch. They want some of those electric cars to be produced in Canada in the long run. They want joint ventures, they want some of the technology and the know-how that comes with that. So the idea here is not just to give consumers access to cheaper electric cars, but to help revitalize Canada’s auto industry.

IRA FLATOW: So you have China. You have Europe. You have all these other countries. Is America becoming an outlier here in the future of energy?

KYLE CHAN: That would be the great fear. I would worry that we are becoming a kind of Galapagos Island– no offense to the Galapagos Islands– where we are kind of taking our own evolutionary path, maybe backwards, reverting to an earlier era of fossil fuels and gas-powered cars, while the rest of the world, really, not just China, but you’re right to point out Europe, Canada, much of the Global South are really, really interested in clean energy, in making the energy transition and in all the other technologies that are built on top of that EVs and batteries and robotics and robotaxis.

IRA FLATOW: Will a paradigm shift occur in this? And, I mean, adoption of green or battery technology, will that occur if we have a paradigm shift in battery technology that will revolutionize the world so everybody says, oh my goodness, we cannot hold this back?

KYLE CHAN: Yeah, I mean, I would even go so far as to say that that revolution is happening now, that while certain next-gen technologies and batteries, like solid state batteries, are often seen as the holy grail, given their greater energy density and improved reliability across weather conditions, et cetera.

Even though that’s on the horizon, and a lot of companies and countries, including China, are actively trying to pursue that, I would even argue that, already, the cost of batteries has declined so remarkably, and the reliability has gone up so dramatically, that they have really enabled the rise of the entire EV industry. And they’ve also enabled battery energy storage systems as a key part of our power grid of utilities. And now, increasingly, data centers as a backup energy.

IRA FLATOW: So that’s the solution to what people say, you know, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. The sun doesn’t shine all the time. Well, we have batteries for those times.

KYLE CHAN: Yes, exactly. That’s crucial. And so that’s why it’s important to see these technologies as being part of this collective ecosystem that they build on top of each other, and that batteries can enable solar and wind and to give you that firm, stable, clean energy that we all so badly need.

IRA FLATOW: Are there any countries besides the US that might take on China in this green technology they’re developing?

KYLE CHAN: There’s a lot. So historically, Japan and South Korea have been very strong in batteries, and they’re making some big investments in both battery technology and in electric vehicle technology. A lot of the EVs that we see in the US, Hyundai, for example, from South Korea, so that’s one area they’re really pushing on.

Other countries across Europe have been investing very heavily in clean technology. And they’re competing and also cooperating with China on some of these things, working jointly to produce electric vehicles or borrowing from some of China’s software for EVs. So there’s a range of different approaches, and I think that the overall story here is that much of the rest of the world is very, very eager to be part of this clean energy revolution.

IRA FLATOW: Kyle Chan is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He studies China’s technology development and industrial policy. Thanks for talking with us today, Kyle.

KYLE CHAN: Thank you, Ira. This episode was produced by Annette Heist. Want to help out the show? Tell your friends and neighbors, your car mechanic about SciFri. Help us out. Spread the love, and thanks for listening. I’m Ira Flatow.

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