Attending a business summit in Shanghai earlier this year, I was struck by how downbeat the mood was. China’s stagnant economy, in particular the slow-motion meltdown of the property market, had clipped investor confidence across a number of industries. One Italian businessman told me the event had many fewer international attendees than previous years. But the apprehensive mood was cut through by the bolshiness of one senior executive from a leading Chinese electric car company: ‘America, Europe, Japan and South Korea are our high-potential markets’, the exec beamed as he set out a plan for what seemed like world domination.
His optimism was not misplaced. In post-pandemic China, electric cars have come out on top as a national success story. The market leader, BYD, sold more cars globally in the last three months of 2023 than Tesla. Chinese brands are expected to take a quarter of European new EV sales this year.
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