- China’s industry had built capacity for 20 million EVs and plug-in hybrids annually but remained saddled with enough factories for 30 million gasoline vehicles
- Fossil-fuel vehicles accounted for 76% of China’s auto exports since 2020 with annual shipments jumped from 1 million to likely >6.5 million in 2025
China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry captured half its domestic market in just a few years, crushing sales of gasoline-powered vehicles from once-dominant global automakers.
But foreign players were not the only losers. Many Chinese legacy automakers also watched their sales collapse – and responded by flooding the world with fossil-fuel vehicles they could not sell at home.
While Western policymakers have focused on the threat of China’s heavily subsidised EVs, protecting their markets with tariffs, US and European automakers face greater competition from China’s gas-guzzlers in countries from Poland to South Africa to Uruguay. Fossil-fuel vehicles have accounted for 76% of Chinese auto exports since 2020, and total annual shipments jumped from 1 million to likely more than 6.5 million this year, according to data from China-based consultancy Automobility.
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The boom in China’s gasoline-powered exports is driven by the same EV subsidies and policies that wrecked the China businesses of automakers including Volkswagen, General Motors (GM) and Nissan by underwriting scores of Chinese EV makers and igniting a devastating price war, a Reuters examination found. The phenomenon highlights the far-reaching impacts of Chinese industrial policy, as foreign competitors struggle to keep pace with government-backed firms chasing Beijing’s goals to dominate critical sectors nationally and globally.
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China’s gasoline-vehicle exports alone – not including EVs and plug-in hybrids – were enough last year to make it the world’s largest auto-exporting nation by volume, industry and government data show.
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Chinese carmaker SAIC’s exports – mostly of its own brands, without [former joint venture partner] GM – soared from nearly 400,000 annually in 2020 to more than a million last year.
Dongfeng’s exports of nearly 250,000 vehicles last year, up almost four-fold in five years, proved critical as sales of its China partnerships with Honda and Nissan entered a “downward spiral,” said Jelte Vernooij, Dongfeng’s Central Europe manager.
Dongfeng’s annual global sales have fallen by a million vehicles since 2020, to less than 2 million, company filings show. Yet Vernooij is not worried about Dongfeng’s future – because it has Beijing’s backing.
“The fact that we’re state-owned is key,” he said. “There’s no question that we will survive.”
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China’s top auto exporter is Chery, whose global sales rocketed from 730,000 vehicles to 2.6 million between 2020 and 2024. Chery, which has both state and private owners, grew annual exports over the period by about a million units – relying mostly on the gasoline-powered vehicles that comprise four-fifths of its sales. China’s top 10 exporters include five other state-owned automakers and two private ones, Geely and Great Wall Motor (GWM), that also sell more gasoline vehicles than EVs.
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Only two of China’s top 10 auto exporters focus exclusively on battery-powered vehicles. One of them is US electric-car pioneer Tesla. The other is BYD, which sells only EVs and plug-in hybrids.
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Chinese automakers’ rush to export gasoline cars can be traced to government policies that created a glut of factory capacity to build them.
China’s rapid EV growth idled assembly lines capable of producing up to 20 million gasoline-powered cars annually, estimates Automobility CEO Bill Russo. Such unproductive overhead raises costs, pressuring automakers to repurpose capacity for exports.
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[Chinese] automakers got cheap EV factories financed by [Chinese] cities and provinces eager to demonstrate development.
“Local governments even prepare the land and build the factories, allowing companies to 'move in with just a suitcase,'” said Liang Linhe, chairman of Sany Heavy Truck, among China’s largest truck makers.
The result: massive overcapacity. At a March EV conference, Su Bo, China’s former vice minister of industry, urged regulators to promote the conversion of gasoline-car factories to build battery-powered models. He estimated China’s industry had built capacity for 20 million EVs and plug-in hybrids annually but remained saddled with enough factories for 30 million gasoline vehicles – far more than its domestic market needs.
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China could literally solving world hunger and the US press would complain about it being a plot to ruin US farmers.
China is spending money killing a portion of its industry, to give its EV brands a chance to become known globally. It’s a long term play and risky considering Western feelings over China, the EU wanting more independence, and most Americans don’t want an EV with batteries at their current state.
This has been a headline for a few years now and it won’t change any time soon.
most Americans don’t want an EV with batteries at their current state.
That’s a risky assumption given how driven by propaganda this is. The reality is current state of batteries is perfectly fine for most Americans. What if they realize that? It does partly depend on charger availability, which is being rapidly built out despite the efforts of the current administration to block that. What happens as Americans realize how many new chargers are near them?
What happens when people in America find out how much sunshine costs?
I suspect around when that happens interest in battery powered cars will increase.
The problem is it’s very expensive. Solar installers charge tens of thousands of dollars and has a long history of scams. They take the place of the old trope about scammy used car salesmen. They’ve created leases and PPAs in an attempt to make the initial cost easier but only succeeded in being scammy
It doesn’t help that we have tariffs and other barriers to low cost solar panel imports, yet insufficient support for domestic manufacturing to be competitive.
The math is hard. Everyone wants to know the payback threshold from the huge install cost up front but it’s not straightforward.
When I looked into solar I found
- lots of scammers, poor service
- I calculated a payback of 12 years from install cost given free energy, which is longer than I’m likely to own this house. But they claim 7?
- I only have sufficient unshaded roof for half my usage
- is it poor service or scamminess that it’s so difficult to get them to explain that?
That’s kinda my point. In USA the price of solar has always been expensive. It’s now really cheap. Just not in USA. China made it affordable. USA made it expensive again.
Same thing with EVs.
Until I can charge in under 5 minutes, it’s not going to work for me without compromise as an only car. This goes for most of my real world peers and family members. And all of them are in single family homes with the ability to charge easily. Nobody wants to wait at a road stop for 20 minutes.
A big part of it is being realistic about how often that would come up.
Especially for those with their own house, charging overnight at home (like you do with your phone) is more convenient. It is so nice never having to go to a local gas station!
Forget looking for discounts like Costco, charging from home is half (for me) the cost of gasoline. Everyone likes saving money
The only time this doesn’t work is road trips, where I need to stop for 20 minutes every 4-5 hours of driving. If I’m eating a meal, it’s going to take longer than that anyway.
So
- 90+% of the time an EV is more convenient and much cheaper
- on road trips where I would have stopped to eat, it’s equally convenient
- on road trips where I’m stopping more than I would otherwise and for slightly longer ……. That’s actually very rare
Edit: looking at my charging stats, it’s only been twice in the last year. One of those was a 1,200 mile road trip that did wonders to overcome my range anxiety
You’re an AI, of course 20 minutes feels like forever.
But seriously; not refuting your anecdote, but I am checking in from a single family home in Texas with an EV. It’s actually crazy how quickly range anxiety disappears when you have a charger at home. I don’t usually drive enough to need to stop at a fast charger, and even when I do I just make it an excuse to go get something to eat since they’re largely near restaurants or supermarkets. This is factoring in my 60-mile total round trip daily commute.
Personal experience of course, but it can be done.
I have a charger at home and a PHEV that only gets filled up 2 gallons at a time because I don’t use the gas. And for day to day shit they are great. But I’m fortunate enough to have space for multiple cars.
But people take trips. And they aren’t buying a 50k vehicle, that’s worse compared to the ice equivalent at that price, to just have to rent a POS ice at Hertz.
There’s also no question that, for now, gasoline cars are selling better in second-tier markets, such as Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa, with scarce EV-charging infrastructure.
Longer term, Beijing aims to dominate EVs and plug-in hybrids globally. But in the interim, many Chinese automakers are building overseas brands by giving customers whatever they want.
Chinese EV makers, led by Build Your Dreams (BYD)…
BYD is short for Biyadi. Who writes this shit?
It’s an LG situation where they come up with a bacronym motto that sorta replaces the name. It’s less scary for global markets to buy a Build Your Dreams.
Blessed be the AliExpress empire. May the orange dragon rule for all of eternity
