this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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When china decides to dominate an industry it doesn't "just happen" they set out to undercut all established business and keep losing money until none remain. That's a strategy, it's not organic.
To put it in context; almost all mobile phones are built in china. The period between 'generations' in mobile phone architecture is about 4 years, give or take a few months. They only need to undercut the non-chinese manufacturers for 4 years before the cost of re-tooling for the next generation of product exceeds any ability to recoup that cost and the opposition goes bust.
For vehicles a production platform is used for 8 to 12 years before it becomes obsolete. This is why a lot of European car makers seem slow to adopt ev; they were invested in the previous generation that couldn't easily be adapted to EV use.
Now we are seeing VW and BMW producing actual designed EV's and they are very good (the new 3 series will set the bar for quality). Renault have the excellent Renault 5, if you are in the market for a hot hatch.
I don't think we will know the outcome of this for a decade or so.
One thing is for sure: letting China put domestic production out of business is very very bad indeed. This isn't a dig at China per se, the principle applies whatever countries are involved (Microsoft and the USA are a similar example). India is also picking up pace in the EV market and will give China competition.
On the plus side; the Chinese might be very good at copying things and scaling up production quickly but they don't innovate in the same way as the west. Their laws on intellectual property means they don't need to take risks with R&D but that also means their corporate culture doesn't reward risk taking (as much as there is any risk in a state backed business).