Owning a car with a Western badge in China was a sure sign you’d made it in the first two decades of this century. Mercedes, BMW, Porsche: Chinese car buyers had the same automotive aspirations as those of us in the rest of the world. But that’s changing fast. The new four-wheeled heroes are homegrown.
China’s buyers have switched over to EVs far more quickly than Western buyers have. Only 6 percent of cars sold in the U.S. last year were electric, compared with almost 25 percent in China, a number that’s expected to grow to well over 30 percent by the end of this year. And Chinese automakers have been much quicker to capitalize on that shift than Western automakers. More than 80 percent of EVs sold in China during 2022 were made by domestic firms, the New York Times reports.
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